Interface system and methodology having scheduled connection responsive to common time reference

ABSTRACT

An input interface system for mapping data packets, each comprising a header portion and a payload portion, from at least one source to at least one destination. An interface method and system between asynchronous data packet flows and synchronized switching systems, which utilize a global common time reference. The synchronized switching systems utilize a time frame switching method based on predefined switching schedules that are responsive to a global common time reference, where the global common time reference is divided into a plurality of contiguous periodic time frames. The asynchronous data packet flows are routed according to information contained in the packets&#39; header. The interface method and system maps the header information of the asynchronous data packet flows to respective time frames that match the predefined switching schedule over the synchronized switching system. The interface system can aggregate multiple asynchronous data packet flows into a single pre-defined switching schedule over the synchronized switching system.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a Continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.09/535,831, entitled, “A SWITCHING SYSTEM AND METHODOLOGY HAVINGSCHEDULED CONNECTION ON INPUT AND OUTPUT PORTS RESPONSIVE TO COMMON TIMEREFERENCE,” filed Mar. 28, 2000; which is a continuation of provisionalapplication Ser. No. 60/164,437 filed Nov. 9, 1999.

FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT

Not Applicable.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates generally to a method and apparatus for switchingof data packets in a communications network in a timely manner whileproviding low switching complexity and performance guarantees.

Circuit-switching networks, which are still the main carrier forreal-time traffic, are designed for telephony service and cannot beeasily enhanced to support multiple services or carry multimediatraffic. Its almost synchronous byte switching enables circuit-switchingnetworks to transport data streams at constant rates with little delayor jitter. However, since circuit-switching networks allocate resourcesexclusively for individual connections, they suffer from low utilizationunder bursty traffic. Moreover, it is difficult to dynamically allocatecircuits of widely different capacities, which makes it a challenge tosupport multimedia traffic. Finally, the almost synchronous byteswitching of SONET, which embodies the Synchronous Digital Hierarchy(SDH), requires increasingly more precise clock synchronization as thelines speed increases [John C. Bellamy, “Digital NetworkSynchronization”, IEEE Communications Magazine, April 1995, pages70-83].

Packet switching networks like IP (Internet Protocol)-based Internet andIntranets [see, for example, A. Tannebaum, Computer Networks (3rd Ed.)Prentice Hall, 1996] handle bursty data more efficiently than circuitswitching, due to their statistical multiplexing of the packet streams.However, current packet switches and routers operate asynchronously andprovide “best effort” service only, in which end-to-end delay and jitterare neither guaranteed nor bounded. Furthermore, statistical variationsof traffic intensity often lead to congestion that results in excessivedelays and loss of packets, thereby significantly reducing the fidelityof real-time streams at their points of reception.

Efforts to define advanced services for both IP and ATM (AsynchronousTransfer Mode) networks have been conducted in two levels: (1)definition of service, and (2) specification of methods for providingdifferent services to different packet streams. The former definesinterfaces, data formats, and performance objectives. The latterspecifies procedures for processing packets by hosts andswitches/routers. The types of services defined for ATM include constantbit rate (CBR), variable bit rate (VBR) and available bit rate (ABR).

The methods for providing different services with packet switching fallunder the general title of Quality of Service (QoS). The latest effortin QoS provision over the Internet is carried on by the DifferentiatedServices (Diffserv) Working Group of the Internet Engineering Task Force(IETF). DiffServ is working on providing QoS on a per-class basis, i.e.,each switch provides a different service to packets belonging todifferent classes. The class to which a packet belongs is identified bya field in the IP packet's header. The DiffServ Working Group hasre-defined the usage of the field originally called Type Of Service andhas re-named the field DS (Differentiated Services) byte [K. Nichols, S.Blake, F. Baker, D. Black, “Definition of the Differentiated ServicesField (DS Field) in the IPv4 and IPv6 Headers,” IETF Request for CommentRFC 2474, December 1998].

DiffServ relies on (i) a relatively small set of generic Per HopBehavior (PHB), which define ways for individual switches to performpacket forwarding, and (ii) access control at the boundary of thenetwork. A switch is configured to apply a specific PHB to each serviceclass (i.e., switches are configured with a mapping between DS fieldvalue and corresponding PHB). A number of transport services can bebuilt on those PHBs, including premium service, which is expected todeliver packets end-to-end within short delay and with low loss. Oneapproach to an optical network that uses synchronization was introducedin the synchronous optical hypergraph [Y. Ofek, “The Topology,Algorithms And Analysis Of A Synchronous Optical HypergraphArchitecture”, Ph.D. Dissertation, Electrical Engineering Department,University of Illinois at Urbana, Report No. UIUCDCS-R-87 1343, May1987], which also relates to how to integrate packet telephony usingsynchronization [Y. Ofek, “Integration Of Voice Communication On ASynchronous Optical Hypergraph”, IEEE INFOCOM'88, 1988]. In thesynchronous optical hypergraph, the forwarding is performed overhyper-edges, which are passive optical stars. In [Li et al.,“Pseudo-Isochronous Cell Switching In ATM Networks”, IEEE INFOCOM'94,pp. 428-437, 1994; Li et al., “Time-Driven Priority: Flow Control ForReal-Time Heterogeneous Internetworking”, IEEE INFOCOM'96, 1996] thesynchronous optical hypergraph idea was applied to networks with anarbitrary topology and with point-to point links. The two papers [Li etal., “Pseudo-Isochronous Cell Switching In ATM Networks”, IEEEINFOCOM'94, pages 428-437, 1994; Li et al., “Time-Driven Priority: FlowControl For Real-Time Heterogeneous Internetworking”, IEEE INFOCOM'96,1996] provide an abstract (high level) description of what is called“RISC-like forwarding”, in which a packet is forwarded, with little ifany details, one hop every time frame in a manner similar to theexecution of instructions in a Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC)machine.

Q-STM (Quasi-Synchronous Transfer Mode) [N. Kamiyama, C. Ohta, H. Tode,M. Yamamoto, H. Okada, “Quasi-STM Transmission Method Based on ATMNetwork,” IEEE GLOBECOM'94, 1994, pages 1808-1814] uses aframe/subframe/slot structure to regulate the forwarding of ATM cellsthrough the network. However, the authors do not suggest or mention thedeployment of a common time reference, or the capability to transportvariable size data packet, or the ability to combine “best effort” andvariable bit rate (VBR) traffic types.

In U.S. Pat. No. 5,418,779 Yemini et al. disclose a switched networkarchitecture with a time reference. The time reference is used in orderto determine the time in which multiplicity of nodes can transmitsimultaneously over one predefined routing tree to one destination. Atevery time instance the multiplicity of nodes are transmitting to adifferent single destination node. However, the patent does not teach orsuggest the synchronization requirements among nodes, or the means inwhich it can be provided, or the method in which it can be used.

In the context of the Highball Project [D. L. Mills, C. G. Boncelet, J.G. Elias, P. A. Schragger, A. W. Jackson, A. Thyagarajan, “Final Reporton the Highball Project,” Technical Report 95-4-1, University ofDelaware, April 1995] a network intended for a moderate number of users(10-100) was developed, deployed, and tested. Nodes are synchronized andtransmission resources are reserved to flows so that packets always findoutput links available on every node traversed. No queuing is performedinside nodes; all queuing is done at the periphery of the network. Thisrequires higher accuracy in the synchronization among nodes and affectsthe robustness of the system.

Architectures for data packet switching have been extensively studiedand developed in the past three decades, see for example [A. G. Fraser,“Early Experiment with Asynchronous Time Division Networks”, IEEENetworks, pp. 12-26, January 1993]. Several surveys of packet switchingfabric architectures can be found in: [R. Y. Awdeh, H. T. Mouftah,“Survey of ATM Switch Architectures,” Computer Networks and ISDNSystems, No. 27, 1995, pages 1567-1613; E. W. Zegura, “Architecture forATM Switching Systems”, IEEE Communications Magazine, February 1993,pages 28-37; A. Pattavina, “Non-blocking Architecture for ATMSwitching”, IEEE Communications Magazine, February 1993, pages 37-48; A.R. Jacob, “A Survey of Fast Packet Switches”, Computer CommunicationsReview, January 1990, pages 54-64].

Circuit switches exclusively use time for routing. A time period isdivided into smaller time slices, each possibly containing one byte. Theabsolute position of each time slice within each time period determineswhere that particular byte is routed.

In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, time-basedrouting is supported with more complex periodicity in timing thancircuit switching provides for. The time frames of the present inventiondelineate a vastly larger time period than the cycle time (i.e., thetime slices) associated with circuit switching. The present inventionalso supports routing based on packet headers, which circuit switchingcannot provide for.

Moreover, the present invention uses Common Time Reference (CTR). TheCTR concept is not used in circuit switching (e.g., T1, T3, and theSONET circuit switching: OC-3, OC-12, OC-48, OC-192, and OC-768). Usingor not using CTR has far reaching implications when comparing circuitswitching and the current invention. For example, CTR ensuresdeterministic no slip of time slots or time frames, while enablingdeterministic pipeline forwarding of time frames. This is in contrast tocircuit switching, where (1) there are time slot slips, and (2)deterministic pipeline forwarding is not possible.

Several surveys of switching fabric architectures and interconnectionnetworks can be found in: [G. Broomell, J. R. Heath, “ClassificationCategories and Historical Development of Switching fabric Topologies,”Computing Surveys, Vol. 15, No. 2, June 1983; H. Ahmadi, W. E. Denzel,“A Survey of Modern High-Performance Switching Techniques,” IEEE Journalon Selected Areas in Communications, Vol. 7, No. 7, September 1989; T.G. Robertazzi Editor, “Performance Evaluation of High Speed SwitchingFabrics and Networks,” IEEE Press, 1992; A. Pattavina, “SwitchingTheory”, John Wiley & Sons, 1998].

Optical data communications include single wavelength standards, whereina single data stream is transduced into a series of pulses of lightcarried by an optical fiber from source to destination. These pulses oflight are generally of a uniform wavelength. This single wavelengthvastly under-utilizes the capacity of the optical fiber, which mayreasonably carry a large number of signals each at a unique wavelength.Due to the nature of propagation of light signals, the optical fiber cancarry multiple wavelengths simultaneously with no degradation of signal,no interference, and no crosstalk imposed by the optical fiber. Theprocess of carrying multiple discrete signals via separate wavelengthsof light on the same optical fiber is known in the art as wavelengthdivision multiplexing (WDM). Logically, wavelength division multiplexingmay be thought of as equivalent to multiple single wavelengthcommunications conducted in parallel, but the physical implementationdoes not require multiple optical fibers and therefore realizes costsavings.

The present invention permits a novel combination of time-based routing,which is similar but not identical to circuit switching, combined withdata packet forwarding as in packet switching. This combination providesfor communication of data via a reserved time frame mechanism, wheretime frames periods permit communications of a very large number ofbytes that are scheduled and switched in a time-based fashion withinreserved and scheduled time frames, while simultaneously providing fornon-scheduled data packet (NSDP) traffic to be switched and routed viathe same WDM (wavelength division multiplexing) optical channels. Thenon-scheduled data packet (NSDP) traffic can be transmitted during emptyportions of an otherwise partially reserved and scheduled time frameperiod. The non-scheduled traffic can also be routed during fullyreserved and scheduled time frame periods that have no scheduled trafficpresently associated with them. Finally, NSDPs can be routed duringunreserved time frames. The system can decode and be responsive to thecontrol information in the non-scheduled data packet header.

There is a growing disparity between the data transfer speeds andthroughput associated with the backbone or core of large networks, whichmay be in the range of one to tens of gigabits per second, and the datatransfer speeds and throughput associated with end-user or nodeconnections, which may be in the range of tens to hundreds of kilobitsper second. Switching systems that function efficiently at the slowspeeds required by end-user or node connections do not scale linearly orin a cost-effective manner to high speed and high performance variants.Existing circuit switches have additional problems as discussed above,in that with increasing data speeds comes a corresponding requirementfor more accurate clocking.

Unlike a circuit switch that might potentially require switching adifferent route for each byte, the time frame switching in the presentinvention provides a novel mode of operation where the connectionbetween an input port and an output port is only changed infrequently,such as on a time frame by time frame basis. This mode of operation isan enabling technology to utilize purely optical switching apparatus, asit circumvents the problems typically associated with long switchingcycle time.

Moreover, the present invention enables the utilization of very simpleinterconnection networks such as Banyan Networks [L. R. Goke, G. J.Lipovski, “Banyan Networks for Partitioning Multiprocessor Systems,” 1stAnnual Symposium on Computer Architecture, December 1973, pages 21-28]whose utilization in other systems may not be advisable due to theirblocking features.

The Dynamic Burst Transfer Time-Slot-Base Network (DBTN) [K. Shiomoto,N. Yamanaka, “Dynamic Burst Transfer Time-Slot-Base Network,” IEEECommunications Magazine, October 1999, pages 88-96] is based on circuitswitching. A circuit is created on-the-fly when the first packet of aburst is presented to the network; the first and subsequent packets aretransported through the network over such circuit.

Dynarc and Net Insight, two Sweden based companies, commercializeswitches for Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs) based on Dynamicsynchronous Transfer Mode (DTM) [C. Bohm, P. Lindgren, L. Ramfelt, P.Sjodin, “The DTM Gigabit Network,” Journal of High Speed Networks, Vol.3, No. 2, 1994. C. Bohm, M. Hidell, P. Lindgren, L. Ramfelt, P. Sjödin,“Fast Circuit Switching for the Next Generation of High PerformanceNetworks,” IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, Vol. 14,No. 2, pages 298-305, February 1996.] DTM deploys a structure of framesand small slots (64 bits) to perform resource allocation and circuitswitching. Slots are allocated to the end-systems according to apredefined distribution; a distributed algorithm based on the deploymentof control slots is used to reallocate unused slots.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In accordance with the present invention, an input interface method isdisclosed and provides for operation by mapping a stream of datapackets, each comprising a header portion and a payload portion, from atleast one source to at least one destination. A Common Time Reference(CTR), is divided into a plurality of periodic cycles each comprised ofat least one time frame (TF), wherein each TF duration is at least oneof fixed duration and variable duration. At least one synchronousvirtual pipe (SVP) is provided having a subset of predefined ones of thetime frames uniquely associated therewith, wherein each SVP consists ofat least one electromagnetic channel, and wherein each electromagneticchannel is at least one of: an optical channel, radio frequency channeland wireless channel. A plurality of queues is provided, wherein eachqueue is associated with a respective one of the SVPs, and wherein eachof the time frames is associated with one of the queues. The headerportions of the data packets are analyzed and the analyzed data packetsare stored in respective queues responsive to the means for analyzing. Alink is then coupled to at least one destination via at least oneselected SVP for transmitting data packets responsive to the analyzingand storing.

In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, an inputinterface system provides for mapping data packets, each comprising aheader portion and a payload portion, from at least one source to atleast one destination. A Common Time Reference (CTR), is divided into aplurality of contiguous cycles each comprised of at least one contiguoustime frame (TF), wherein each TF duration is at least one of fixedduration and variable duration. At least one synchronous virtual pipe(SVP) is provided having a subset of predefined time frames, whereineach SVP consists of at least one electromagnetic channel, and whereineach electromagnetic channel is at least one of: an optical channel,radio frequency channel and wireless channel. At least one queue isprovided wherein each queue is associated with at least one of theelectromagnetic channels. The header portions of the data packets areanalyzed, and the analyzed data packets are stored in respective queuesresponsive to the analyzing, wherein each electromagnetic channel iscoupled to at least one destination. A SVP Forwarding Controller isresponsive to the analyzing and the storing, and is comprised of asecond memory for storing SVP schedules, and for forwarding, to at leastone selected electromagnetic channel, respective ones of the datapackets from respective ones of the queues responsive to the respectiveone of the SVP schedules and the CTR.

In accordance with yet another aspect of the present invention, a fastswitching method is disclosed and is tailored to operate responsive to aglobal common time such that the switching delay from input to output isknown in advance and is minimized in a deterministic way. Consequently,such a switch can be employed in the construction of a backbone networkusing optical fibers with dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM).Such optical fiber links have a transmission rate, with multiplewavelengths, of a few terabits (1012) per second.

The design method disclosed in this invention minimizes the timerequired for the routing decision and switching of every data packet.Consequently, for a given solid state technology, memory access time andmemory word width, this method can support the highest speed opticalDWDM links. Moreover, the above is independent of the number of switchports.

The switching and data packet forwarding method combines the advantagesof both circuit and packet switching. It provides for allocation andexclusive use of transmission capacity for predefined connections andfor those connections it guarantees loss free transport with low delayand jitter. When predefined connections do not use their allocatedresources, other non-reserved data packets can use them withoutaffecting the performance of the predefined connections.

Under the aforementioned prior art methods for providing packetswitching services, switches and routers operate asynchronously. Thepresent invention provides real-time services by synchronous methodsthat utilize a time reference that is common to the switches andpossibly end stations comprising a wide area network. The common timereference can be realized by using UTC (Coordinated Universal Time),which is globally available via, for example, GPS (Global PositioningSystem—see, for example: [Peter H. Dana, “Global Positioning System(GPS) Time Dissemination for Real-Time Applications”, Real-Time Systems,12, pp. 9-40, 1997]. By international agreement, UTC is the same allover the world. UTC is the scientific name for what is commonly calledGMT (Greenwich Mean Time), the time at the 0 (root) line of longitude atGreenwich, England. In 1967, an international agreement established thelength of a second as the duration of 9,192,631,770 oscillations of thecesium atom. The adoption of the atomic second led to the coordinationof clocks around the world and the establishment of UTC in 1972. TheTime and Frequency Division of the National Institute of Standards andTechnologies (NIST) (see http://www.boulder.nist.gov/timefreq) isresponsible for coordinating UTC with the International Bureau ofWeights and Measures (BIPM) in Paris.

UTC timing is readily available to individual PCs through GPS cards. Forexample, TrueTime, Inc. (Santa Rosa, Calif.) offers a product under thetrade name PCI-SG, which provides precise time, with zero latency, tocomputers that have PCI extension slots. Another way by which UTC can beprovided over a network is by using the Network Time Protocol (NTP) [D.Mills, “Network Time Protocol” (version 3) IETF RFC 1305]. However, theclock accuracy of NTP is not adequate for inter-switch coordination, onwhich this invention is based.

In accordance with the present invention, the synchronizationrequirements are independent of the physical link transmission speed,while in circuit switching the synchronization becomes more and moredifficult as the link speed increases. In accordance with the presentinvention, routing is not performed only based on timing information:routing can be based also on information contained in the header of datapackets. For example, Internet routing can be done using IP addresses orusing an IP tag/label when MPLS is deployed.

One embodiment of the present invention utilizes an alignment featurewithin an input port for aligning incoming data packets to a time frameboundary prior to entry to a switching fabric. This embodiment has theadditional benefit of providing for filtering non-reserved traffic fromthe data packet stream and routing said traffic to a separate routingcontroller for best effort transport. The system decodes and isresponsive to control information in the non-reserved data packetheader. The remainder of the traffic represents reserved traffic that isfirst aligned to a time frame boundary and then routed through theswitch fabric on a subsequent time frame, thus preserving thesynchronous operation of the system. The present invention also providesmeans to reintegrate the filtered non-scheduled traffic into idleportions as may coexist within the scheduled traffic streams.

One embodiment of the present invention utilizes a deferred alignmentfeature, which permits the alignment of incoming data packets to bedeferred after preliminary routing and queuing has been performed. Thisembodiment trades additional storage required for a larger plurality ofqueues for reduced complexity required in the switch fabric. The switchfabric becomes simpler because it is logically divided into a firstportion and a second portion, the first portion of which can berelocated upstream of (i.e., before) the alignment buffer queues. Byrelocating the first portion to a position before the alignment bufferqueues, the first portion of the switch fabric may be implemented as asimple data path expander to fan out the data to a large plurality ofqueues. The complexity and throughput requirements of each queue arealso reduced as the functionality is spread out over a wider number ofqueues.

A novel control mode is provided by the present invention where a packetheader comprises new in-band signal information to establish, maintain,and dis-establish (or destroy) a reserved traffic channel. The systemdecodes and is responsive to the control information in the data packetheader. In this control mode, a specially designated data packet worksas a “trailblazer” by signaling to each switch in a plurality ofconnected switches that it is the first of an expected train ofassociated data packets. The switches of the present invention respondif able by establishing a reserved data channel, a reserved transferbandwidth, or by reserving capacity for the traffic associated with andfollowing the specially designated data packet. In an analogous fashion,a terminating data packet signals to each switch in a plurality ofconnected switches that it is the last of a group or train of associateddata packets. The switches of the present invention respond bydestroying, reallocating, or reclaiming the data transfer capacity orbandwidth that had been made available to the train of data packets.Interstitial data packets within a train of data packets are marked assuch to permit the switches to quickly and easily identify the datapacket as one belonging to a scheduled and reserved train of datapackets and to the corresponding reserved bandwidth or capacity. Datapackets not having the special designations indicated above are treatedin the conventional way, where they are generally but not exclusivelycarried on a best effort basis. Note that the in-band, scheduling andreservation of the present novel control mode is independent of butoperates concurrently and in cooperation with any other reserved trafficmechanism implemented in the switching systems.

A novel time frame switching fabric control is provided in accordancewith an alternate embodiment of the present invention, which stores apredefined sequence of switch fabric configurations, responsive to ahigh level controller that coordinates multiple switching systems, andapplies the stored predefined sequence of switch fabric configurationson a cyclical basis having complex periodicity. The application of thestored predefined switch fabric configurations permits the switches ofthe present invention to relay data over predefined, scheduled, and/orreserved data channels without the computational overhead of computingthose schedules ad infinitum within each switch. This frees the switchcomputation unit to operate relatively autonomously to handle transientrequests for local traffic reservation requests without changing thepredefined switch fabric configurations at large, wherein the switchcomputation unit provides for finding routes for such transient requestsby determining how to utilize underused switch bandwidth (i.e., “holes”in the predefined usage). The computational requirements of determininga small incremental change to a switch fabric are much less than havingto re-compute the entire switch fabric configuration. Further, thebookkeeping operations associated with the incremental changes aresignificantly less time-consuming to track than tracking the entirestate of the switch fabric as it changes over time.

These and other aspects and attributes of the present invention will bediscussed with reference to the following drawings and accompanyingspecification.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram of one embodiment of a switchconnected to a plurality of WDM links with a switch scheduler inaccordance with the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a timing diagram of a common time reference (CTR) that isaligned to the coordinated universal time (UTC) standard, as utilized bythe present invention, wherein the CTR is divided into a plurality ofcontiguous periodic super-cycles each comprised of at least onecontiguous time cycle each comprised of at least one contiguous timeframe, wherein the super-cycle is equal to and aligned with the UTCsecond;

FIG. 3 is a schematic block diagram of a virtual pipe and its timingrelationship with a common time reference (CTR) as in the presentinvention;

FIG. 4 illustrates the mapping of time frames into and out of a node ona virtual pipe of the present invention;

FIG. 5A is a schematic block diagram illustrating at least one serialtransmitter and at least one serial receiver connected with a WDM link,in accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 5B is a table illustrating a 4B/5B encoding scheme for data;

FIG. 5C is a table illustrating a 4B/5B encoding scheme for controlsignals;

FIG. 6A is a map of a data packet with a header, as utilized inaccordance with the present invention;

FIG. 6B illustrates a mapping of additional details of the encoding ofthe data packet of FIG. 6A;

FIG. 7 is a schematic block diagram of an input port in accordance withthe present invention;

FIG. 8 is a flow diagram illustrating the operation of the routingcontroller in accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 9 is a schematic block diagram of an embodiment of a packetscheduling controller in accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 10 is a schematic block diagram of an alternate embodiment of apacket scheduling controller in accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 11 is a flow diagram describing the operation of the packetscheduling and rescheduling controllers of FIGS. 9 and 10;

FIG. 12 illustrates details of the input request, input reject, andinput schedule messages in accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 13 is a flow diagram illustrating the operation of the selectbuffer and congestion controllers of FIGS. 9 and 10;

FIG. 14 illustrates the four pipelined forwarding phases of forwardingdata packets in accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 15 is a schematic block diagram of a four pipelined forwardingphases of forwarding data packets in accordance with the presentinvention;

FIG. 16 is a schematic block diagram of one embodiment of the switchingfabric, with its fabric controller, in accordance with the presentinvention;

FIG. 17 is a schematic block diagram of an output port in accordancewith the present invention;

FIG. 18 is a flow diagram illustrating the operation of a pipelinedforwarding phase of the output port of FIG. 17;

FIG. 19 is a flow diagram illustrating the operation of anotherpipelined forwarding phase of the output port of FIG. 17;

FIG. 20 is a flow diagram illustrating the operation of the switchscheduling controller of FIG. 1;

FIG. 21 illustrates details of the scheduling computation of the switchscheduling controller in accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 22 illustrates additional details of the scheduling computation ofthe switch scheduling controller in accordance with the presentinvention;

FIG. 23 illustrates further details of the scheduling computation of theswitch scheduling controller in accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 24A is a functional diagram of a switch with the FAST Switchingmode of operation, which implies that there are pre-computed schedulesfor transferring the incoming data packets to their respective outputports;

FIG. 24B is a timing diagram of three pipelined forwarding phases, withpredefined schedules for forwarding data packets in accordance with thepresent invention;

FIG. 25 provides an example of a fabric controller that uses a pluralityof FAST switching matrices, where there is a different switching matrixfor a subset of time slots in every time frame, for each time frame inevery time cycle, and for each time cycle in every super-cycle inaccordance with the present invention;

FIG. 26 illustrates a wave division multiplexing (WDM) switch that isconnected to optical link with multiple wavelengths, wherein each of thewavelengths constitutes a communication channel that has a time divisionmultiplexing (TDM) structure with time frames, time cycles andsuper-cycles in accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 27 illustrates multi-dimensional mapping with four input variablesas an example: p-in—input port #, w-in—input wavelength (color),t-in—time frame # in (within a time cycle), c-in—time cycle # in (withina super-cycle); and four output variables: p-out—output port #,w-out—output wavelength (color), t-out—time frame # out (within a timecycle), c-out—time cycle # out (within a super-cycle) in accordance withthe present invention;

FIG. 28 illustrates an example of pipeline forwarding of time frames, inaccordance with the present invention;

FIG. 29 illustrates an example of mapping time frames, received over thesame wavelength received through multiple input ports, to one wavelength(channels) on the same output port, in accordance with the presentinvention;

FIG. 30 illustrates an example of multi-dimensional mapping for alltime-driven optical switching with no wavelength conversion, the opticalswitching being responsive to the common time reference in accordancewith the present invention;

FIG. 31A is a schematic diagram of an all optical switch with at leastone optical switching fabric, which switches a plurality of opticalwavelengths, wherein the optical switching matrix (as in FIG. 30, forexample) changes every time frame;

FIG. 31B is a timing diagram of the all optical switch operation withtwo phases: one in which the actual switching is performed and the otherin which the current switching matrix is being replaced by a newswitching matrix;

FIG. 32A is a schematic diagram of a multiple fabric switch;

FIG. 32B is a timing diagram of a switching operation that is responsiveto the common time reference 002 with three pipeline forwarding phasesthat enable the operation with the pre-computed schedules with the FASTQueuing Method;

FIG. 33A is a functional description of a switch with 16 ports—each with16-wavelength division multiplexing optical channels, such that it ispossible to transfer: From (any time frame (TF) of any Channel at anyInput) To (a predefined time frame (TF) of any Channel at any Output);

FIG. 33B is a timing diagram of a switching operation that is responsiveto the common time reference 002 with two pipeline forwarding phases;

FIG. 34 is a functional block diagram illustrating a wavelength divisionmultiplexing input port with a plurality of serial receivers,serial-to-parallel conversion and a plurality of alignment subsystems;

FIG. 35 is a functional block diagram of the alignment subsystem thatoperates responsive to CTR and the serial link relative timing;

FIG. 36 is a timing diagram of the alignment subsystem operationresponsive to CTR and the serial link relative timing;

FIG. 37 is a block diagram and schematic of the structure of a switchand a fabric controller with memory for a plurality of switchingmatrices;

FIG. 38 is illustrates a wavelength division multiplexing output port;

FIG. 39 is a functional block diagram of a wavelength divisionmultiplexing input port with data packet filters for detectingnon-scheduled data packets, which are forwarded to a routing module;

FIG. 40 is a block diagram of a routing module;

FIG. 41 is a block diagram of a data packet filter connected to analignment subsystem that is connected to a switch fabric and a fabriccontroller;

FIG. 42 is a block diagram of a switch design with a 16-to-256 expander,wherein the expander output lines are connected to alignment subsystems;

FIG. 43 is a more detailed description of the 16-to-256 expander of FIG.42;

FIG. 44 is a functional block diagram of the connection from thealignment subsystems to an output port via a plurality of selectors;

FIG. 45 is a functional block diagram of an SVP interface with per timeframe queues;

FIG. 46A is a functional block diagram of an SVP interface with per SVPqueues;

FIG. 46B is a functional block diagram of multiple SVP interfaces to amulti-protocol time driven SVP switch;

FIG. 47 is a system block diagram of a network with a plurality ofmulti-protocol time driven SVP switches that are connected to SVPinterfaces and other vendors' optical cross connects (OXCs), showingchannels, interfaces, and so forth;

FIG. 48 is a high level diagram of communications layering and adescription of a two layer system, wherein the low/inside layer is densewavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) and the outer layer is IP/MPLS;

FIG. 49 is a diagram of an 8-by-8 multi-stage interconnection switchthat is constructed of 2-by-2 switching elements;

FIG. 50A is a comparison table of a multi-stage interconnection switchwith a crossbar switch; and

FIG. 50B is a block diagram of a 256-by-256 multi-stage interconnectionswitch that is constructed of 4-by-4 switching elements.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

While this invention is susceptible of embodiment in many differentforms, there is shown in the drawing, and will be described herein indetail, specific embodiments thereof with the understanding that thepresent disclosure is to be considered as an exemplification of theprinciples of the invention and is not intended to limit the inventionto the specific embodiments illustrated.

The present invention relates to a system and method for switching andforwarding data packets over a packet switching network with optical WDM(wavelength division multiplexing) links. The switches of the networkmaintain a common time reference (CTR), which is obtained either from anexternal source (such as GPS—Global Positioning System) or is generatedand distributed internally. The common time reference is used to definetime intervals, which include supper-cycles, time cycles, time frames,time slots, and other kinds of time intervals. The time intervals arearranged both in simple periodicity and complex periodicity (likeseconds and minutes of a clock).

A packet that arrives to an input port of a switch, is switched to anoutput port based on either specific routing information in the packet'sheader (e.g., IPv4 destination address in the Internet, VCI/VPI labelsin ATM, MPLS—multi-protocol label switching-labels) or arrival timeinformation. Each switch along a route from a source to a destinationforwards packets in periodic time intervals that are predefined usingthe common time reference.

A time interval duration can be longer than the time duration requiredfor communicating a data packet, in which case the exact position of adata packet in the time interval is not predetermined. A data packet isdefined to be located within the time interval which contains thecommunication of the first bit of the packet, even if the length of thepacket is sufficiently long to require multiple time intervals tocommunicate the entire data packet.

Data packets that are forwarded inside the network over the same routeand in the same periodic time intervals constitute a virtual pipe andshare the same pipe-ID or PID. A pipe-ID or PID can be either explicit,such as a tag or a label that is generated inside the network, orimplicit such as a group of IP addresses or the combination of fields inthe data packet header. A virtual pipe can be used to transport datapackets from multiple sources and to multiple destinations. The timeinterval in which a switch forwards a specific packet is determined bythe time it reaches the switch, the current value of the common timereference, and possibly the packet's pipe-ID.

A virtual pipe can provide deterministic quality of service guarantees.In accordance with the present invention, congestion-free packetswitching is provided for pipe-IDs in which capacity in theircorresponding forwarding links and time intervals is reserved inadvance. Furthermore, packets that are transferred over a virtual pipereach their destination in predefined time intervals, which guaranteesthat the delay jitter is smaller than or equal to one time interval.

Packets that are forwarded from one source to multiple destinationsshare the same pipe-ID and the links and time intervals on which theyare forwarded comprise a virtual tree. This facilitates congestion-freeforwarding from one input port to multiple output ports, andconsequently, from one source to a multiplicity of destinations. Packetsthat are destined to multiple destinations reach all of theirdestinations in predefined time intervals and with delay jitter that isno larger than one time interval.

A system is provided for managing data transfer of data packets from asource to a destination. The transfer of the data packets is providedduring a predefined time interval, comprised of a plurality ofpredefined time frames. The system is further comprised of a pluralityof switches. A virtual pipe is comprised of at least two of the switchesinterconnected via communication links in a path. A common timereference signal is coupled to each of the switches, and a timeassignment controller assigns selected predefined time frames fortransfer into and out from each of the respective switches responsive tothe common time reference signal. Each communications link may use adifferent time frame duration generated from the common time referencesignal.

For each switch, there is a first predefined time frame and a firstpredefined wavelength within which a respective data packet istransferred into the respective switch, and a second predefined timeframe and a second predefined wavelength within which the respectivedata packet is forwarded out of the respective switch, wherein the firstand second predefined time frames may have different durations. The timeassignment provides consistent fixed time intervals between the input toand output from the virtual pipe.

In a preferred embodiment, there is a predefined subset of thepredefined time frames during which the data packets are transferred inthe switch, and for each of the respective switches, there are apredefined subset of the predefined time frames during which the datapackets are transferred out of the switch.

Each of the switches is comprised of one or a plurality of uniquelyaddressable input and output ports. A routing controller maps each ofthe data packets that arrives at each one of the input ports of therespective switch to a respective one or more of the output ports of therespective switch. Furthermore, each input port and each output port iscomprised of one or a plurality of uniquely addressable optical WDM(wavelength division multiplexing) channels.

For each of the data packets, there is an associated time of arrival toa respective one of the input ports. The time of arrival is associatedwith a particular one of the predefined time frames. For each of themappings by the routing controller, there is an associated mapping by ascheduling controller, which maps each of the data packets between thetime of arrival and forwarding time out. The forwarding time out isassociated with a specified predefined time frame.

In the preferred embodiment, there are a plurality of the virtual pipescomprised of at least two of the switches interconnected viacommunication links in a path. The communication link is a connectionbetween two adjacent switches; and each of the communications links canbe used simultaneously by at least two of the virtual pipes. Multipledata packets can be transferred utilizing at least two of the virtualpipes.

In one embodiment of the present invention, there is a fixed timedifference, which is constant for all switches, between the time framesfor the associated time of arrival and forwarding time out for each ofthe data packets. A predefined interval is comprised of a fixed numberof contiguous time frames comprising a time cycle. Data packets that areforwarded over a given virtual pipe are forwarded from an output portwithin a predefined subset of time frames in each time cycle.Furthermore, the number of data packets that can be forwarded in each ofthe predefined subset of time frames for a given virtual pipe is alsopredefined.

The time frames associated with a particular one of the switches withinthe virtual pipe are associated with the same switch for all the timecycles, and are also associated with one of input into or output fromthe particular respective switch.

In one embodiment of the present invention, there is a constant fixedtime between the input into and output from a respective one of theswitches for each of the time frames within each of the time cycles. Afixed number of contiguous time cycles comprise a super-cycle, which isperiodic. Data packets that are forwarded over a given virtual pipe areforwarded from an output port within a predefined subset of time framesin each super-cycle. Furthermore, the number of data packets that can beforwarded in each of the predefined subset of time frames within asuper-cycle for a given virtual pipe is also predefined.

In the preferred embodiment, the common time reference signal is devisedfrom the GPS (Global Positioning System), and is in accordance with theUTC (Coordinated Universal Time) standard. The UTC time signal does nothave to be received directly from GPS. Such signal can be received byusing various means, as long as the delay or time uncertainty associatedwith that UTC time signal does not exceed half a time frame.

In one embodiment, the super-cycle duration is equal to one second asmeasured using the UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) standard. In analternate embodiment the super-cycle duration spans multiple UTCseconds. In another alternate embodiment the super-cycle duration is afraction of a UTC second. In a preferred embodiment, the super-cycleduration is a small integer number of UTC seconds.

Data packets can be Internet Protocol (IP) data packets, multi-protocollabel switching (MPLS) data packets, Frame Relay frames, fiber channeldata units, or asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) cells, and can beforwarded over the same virtual pipe having an associated pipeidentification (PID). The PID can be explicitly contained in a field ofthe packet header, or implicitly given by an Internet protocol (IP)address, Internet protocol group multicast address, a combination ofvalues in the IP and/or transport control protocol (TCP) and/or userdatagram protocol (UDP) header and/or payload, an MPLS label, anasynchronous transfer mode (ATM) virtual circuit identifier (VCI), and avirtual path identifier (VPI), or used in combination as VCI/VPI.

The routing controller determines two possible associations of anincoming data packet: (i) the output port, and (ii) the time of arrival(ToA). The ToA is then used by the scheduling controller for determiningwhen a data packet should be forwarded by the select buffer controllerto the next switch in the virtual pipe. The routing controller utilizesat least one of Pipe-ID, Internet protocol version 4 (IPv4), Internetprotocol version 6 (IPv6) addresses, Internet protocol group multicastaddress, Internet MPLS (multi protocol label swapping or tag switching)labels, ATM virtual circuit identifier and virtual path identifier(VCI/VPI), and IEEE 802 MAC (media access control) addresses, formapping from an input port to an output port. The mapping from an inputport to an output port can also be determined, solely or in conjunctionwith the foregoing information, according to the ToA of the data packet.

Each of the data packets is comprised of a header, which can include anassociated time stamp. For each of the mappings by the routingcontroller, there is an associated mapping by the scheduling controller,of each of the data packets between the respective associated time stampand an associated forwarding time, which is associated with one of thepredefined time frames. The time stamp can record the time at which apacket was created by its application.

In one embodiment, the time stamp is generated by the Internet real-timeprotocol (RTP) entity within a predefined one of the sources orswitches. The time stamp can be used by a scheduling controller in orderto determine the forwarding time of a data packet from an output port.

Each of the data packets originates from a source or an end station, andthe time stamp is generated at the respective end station for inclusionin the respective originated data packet. Such generation of a timestamp can be derived from UTC either by receiving it directly from GPSor by using the Internet's Network Time Protocol (NTP). The time stampcan alternatively be generated at the sub-network boundary, which is thepoint at which the data enters the synchronous virtual pipe.

In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, a system isprovided for transferring data (packets) across a data network whilemaintaining for reserved data traffic constant bounded jitter (or delayuncertainty) and no congestion-induced loss of data (packets). Suchproperties are essential for many multimedia applications, such as,telephony and video teleconferencing.

In accordance with one aspect of an illustrated implementation of thepresent invention, one or a plurality of virtual pipes 25 are provided,as shown in FIG. 3, over a data network with general topology. Such datanetwork can span the globe. Each virtual pipe 25 is constructed over oneor more switches 10, shown in FIG. 3, which are interconnected viacommunication links 41 in a path.

FIG. 3 is a schematic illustration of a virtual pipe and its timingrelationship with a common time reference (CTR), wherein delay isdetermined by the number of time frames between the forward time out atNode A and the forward time out at Node D. Each virtual pipe 25 isconstructed over one or more switches 10 which are interconnected viacommunication links 41 in a path.

FIG. 3 illustrates a virtual pipe 25 from the output port 40 of switchA, through switches B and C. The illustrated virtual pipe ends at theoutput port 40 of node D. The virtual pipe 25 transfers data packetsfrom at least one source to at least one destination.

The data packet transfers over the virtual pipe 25 via switches 10 aredesigned to occur during a plurality of predefined time intervals,wherein each of the predefined time intervals is comprised of aplurality of predefined time frames. The timely transfers of datapackets are achieved by coupling a common time reference signal (notshown) to each of the switches 10.

An output port 40 is connected to a next input port 30 via acommunication link 41, as shown in FIG. 3. The communication link can berealized using various technologies compatible with the presentinvention including fiber optic conduits with WDM (wavelength divisionmultiplexing) channels, copper and other wired conductors, and wirelesscommunication links—including but not limited to, for example, radiofrequency (RF) between two ground stations, a ground station and asatellite, and between two satellites orbiting the earth, microwavelinks, infrared (IR) links, optical communications lasers. Thecommunication link does not have to be a serial communication link. Aparallel communication link can be used—such a parallel link cansimultaneously carry multiple data bits, associated clock signals, andassociated control signals.

FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram of one embodiment of an SVP switchwith a switch scheduler in accordance with the present invention. TheSVP switch 10 comprises a common time reference means 20, at least oneinput port 30, at least one output port 40, a switching fabric 50 with afabric controller 52, and a switch scheduler 60. In the preferredembodiment, the common time reference means 20 is a GPS receiver whichreceives a source of common time reference 001 (e.g., UTC via GPS) viaan antenna as illustrated. The common time reference means 20 provides acommon time reference signal 002 to all input ports 30, all output ports40, and the switch scheduler 60. GPS time receivers are available from avariety of manufacturers, such as, TrueTime, Inc. (Santa Rosa, Calif.).With such equipment, it is possible to maintain a local clock withaccuracy of ±1 microsecond from the UTC (Coordinated Universal Time)standard everywhere around the globe.

Each respective one of the input ports 30 is coupled to the switchscheduler 60 and to the switching fabric 50 with a fabric controller 52.Each respective one of the output ports 40 is coupled to the switchscheduler 60 and to the switching fabric 50. The fabric controller 52 isadditionally coupled to the switch scheduler 60.

The switch scheduler 60 supplies a slot clock signal 65 to eachrespective one of the input ports 30 and each respective one of theoutput ports 40. The slot clock is an indication of time slots within asingle time frame. The switch scheduler 60 also supplies input schedulemessages 62 and input reject messages 63 to each respective one of theinput ports 30. Each respective one of the input ports 30 supplies inputrequest messages 61 to the switch scheduler 60. The switch scheduler 60also supplies a fabric schedule 64 to the fabric controller 52.

The switch scheduler 60 is constructed of a central processing unit(CPU), a random access memory (RAM) for storing messages, schedules,parameters, and responses, a read only memory (ROM) for storing theswitch scheduler processing program and a table with operationparameters.

FIG. 2 is an illustration of a common time reference (CTR) that isaligned to UTC. Consecutive time frames are grouped into time cycles. Asshown in the example illustrated in FIG. 2, there are 100 time frames ineach time cycle. For illustration purposes, the time frames within atime cycle are numbered 1 through 100.

Consecutive time cycles are grouped together into super-cycles, and asshown in FIG. 2, there are 80 time cycles in each super-cycle. Forillustration purposes, time cycles within a super-cycle are numbered 0through 79. Super-cycles 0 and m are shown in FIG. 2.

FIG. 2 is illustrative of the relationship of time frames, time cycles,and super-cycles; in alternate embodiments, the number of time frameswithin a time cycle may be different than 100, and the number of timecycles within a super-cycle may be different than 80.

FIG. 2 illustrates how the common time reference signal can be alignedwith the UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) standard. In this illustratedexample, the duration of every super-cycle is exactly one second asmeasured by the UTC standard. Moreover, as shown in FIG. 2, thebeginning of each super-cycle coincides with the beginning of a UTCsecond. Consequently, when leap seconds are inserted or deleted for UTCcorrections (due to changes in the earth rotation period), the cycle andsuper-cycle periodic scheduling will not be affected. The time frames,time cycles, and super-cycles are associated in the same manner with allrespective switches within the virtual pipe at all times.

In the embodiment illustrated in FIG. 2, the super-cycle duration isequal to one second as measured using the UTC (Coordinated UniversalTime) standard. In an alternate embodiment the super-cycle durationspans multiple UTC seconds. In another alternate embodiment thesuper-cycle duration is a fraction of a UTC second. In anotherembodiment, the super-cycle duration is a small integer number of UTCseconds. A time frame may be further divided into time slots in thepreferred embodiment, not illustrated in FIG. 2.

Pipeline forwarding relates to data packets being forwarded across avirtual pipe 25 (see FIG. 3) with a predefined delay in every stage(either across a communication link 41 or across an SVP switch 10 frominput port 30 to output port 40). Data packets enter a virtual pipe 25from one or more sources and are forwarded to one or more destinations.The SVP switch 10 structure, as shown in FIG. 3, can also be referred toas a pipeline switch, since it enables a network comprised of suchswitches to operate as a large distributed pipeline architecture, as itis commonly found inside digital systems and computer architectures.

Referring again to FIG. 3, the timely pipeline forwarding of datapackets over the virtual pipe 25 is illustrated. As shown in FIG. 3,time cycles each contain 10 time frames, and for clarity thesuper-cycles are not shown. A data packet is received by one of theinput ports 30 of switch A at time frame 1, and is forwarded along thisvirtual pipe 25 in the following manner: (i) the data packet 41A isforwarded from the output port 40 of switch A at time frame 2 of timecycle 1, (ii) the data packet 41B is forwarded from the output port 40of switch B, after 18 time frames, at time frame 10 of time cycle 2,(iii) the data packet 41C is forwarded from the output port 40 of switchC, after 42 time frames, at time frame 2 of time cycle 7, and (iv) thedata packet 41D is forwarded from the output port 40 of switch D, after19 time frames, at time frame 1 of time cycle 9.

As illustrated in FIG. 3,

All data packets enter this virtual pipe 25 (i.e., are forwarded out ofthe output port 40 of switch A) periodically at the second time frame ofa time cycle and are output from this virtual pipe 25 (i.e., areforwarded out of the output port 40 of switch D) after 79 time frames.

The data packets that enter the virtual pipe 25 (i.e., are forwarded outof the output port 40 of switch A) can come from one or more sources andcan reach switch A over one or more input links 41.

The data packets that exit the virtual pipe 25 (i.e., forwarded out ofthe output port 40 of switch D) can be forwarded over plurality ofoutput links 41 to one of plurality of destinations.

The data packets that exit the virtual pipe 25 (i.e., forwarded out ofthe output port 40 of switch D) can be forwarded simultaneously tomultiple destinations, (i.e., multi-cast (one-to-many) data packetforwarding).

The communication link 41 between two adjacent ones of the switches 10can be used simultaneously by at least two of the virtual pipes.

A plurality of virtual pipes can multiplex (i.e., mix their traffic)over the same communication links.

A plurality of virtual pipes can multiplex (i.e., mix their traffic)during the same time frames and in an arbitrary manner.

The same time frame can be used by multiple data packets from one ormore virtual pipes.

For each virtual pipe there are predefined time frames within whichrespective data packets are transferred into its respective switches,and separate predefined time frames within which the respective datapackets are transferred out of its respective switches. Though the timeframes of each virtual pipe on each of its switches can be assigned inan arbitrary manner along the common time reference, it is convenientand practical to assign time frames in a periodic manner in time cyclesand super-cycles.

The SVP switch 10 structure, as shown in FIG. 3, can also be referred toas a pipeline switch, since it enables a network comprised of suchswitches to operate as a large distributed pipeline architecture, as itis commonly found inside digital systems and computer architectures.

FIG. 4 illustrates the mapping of the time frames into and out of a nodeon a virtual pipe, wherein the mapping repeats itself in every timecycle illustrating the time in, which is the time of arrival (ToA),versus the time out, which is the forwarding time out of the outputport. FIG. 4 shows the periodic scheduling and forwarding timing of aswitch of a virtual pipe wherein there are a predefined subset of timeframes (i, 75, and 80) of every time cycle, during which data packetsare transferred into that switch, and wherein for that virtual pipethere are a predefined subset of time frames (i+3, 1, and 3) of everytime cycle, during which the data packets are transferred out of thatswitch.

In the illustrated example of FIG. 4, a first data packet 5 a arrivingat the input port of the switch at time frame i is forwarded out of theoutput port of the switch at time frame i+3. In this example, the datapacket is forwarded out of the output port at a later time frame withinthe same time cycle in which it arrived. The delay in transiting theswitch (dts) determines a lower bound on the value (i+dts). In theillustrated example, dts must be less than or equal to 3 time frames.

Also as shown in FIG. 4, a second data packet 5 b arriving at the inputport of the switch at time frame 75 is forwarded out of the output portof the switch at time frame 1 within the next time cycle. In thisexample the data packet is forwarded out of the output port at a earliernumbered time frame but within the next time cycle from which itarrived. Note that data packets in transit may cross time cycleboundaries.

If—for example—each of the three data packets has 125 bytes (i.e. 1000bits), and there are 80 time frames of 125 microseconds in each timecycle (i.e. a time cycle duration of 10 milliseconds), then thebandwidth allocated to this virtual pipe is 300,000 bits per second. Ingeneral, the bandwidth or capacity allocated for a virtual pipe iscomputed by dividing the number of bits transferred during each of thetime cycles by the time cycle duration. In the case of a bandwidth in asuper-cycle, the bandwidth allocated to a virtual pipe is computed bydividing the number of bits transferred during each of the super-cyclesby the super-cycle duration.

FIG. 5A is an illustration of a serial transmitter and a serialreceiver. FIG. 5B is a table illustrating the 4B/5B encoding scheme fordata, and FIG. 5C is a table illustrating the 4B/5B encoding scheme forcontrol signals.

Referring to FIG. 5A, a serial transmitter 49 and serial receiver 31 areillustrated as coupled to each link 41. A variety of encoding schemescan be used for a serial line link 41 in the context of this invention,such as, SONET/SDH, 8B/10B Fiber Channel, and 4B/5B Fiber DistributedData Interface (FDDI). In addition to the encoding and decoding of thedata transmitted over the serial link, the serial transmitter/receiver(49 and 31) sends/receives control words for a variety of in-bandcontrol purposes, mostly unrelated to the present invention description.

However, two control words, time frame delimiter (TFD) and positiondelimiter (PD) are used in accordance with the present invention. TheTFD marks the boundary between two successive time frames and is sent bya serial transmitter 49 when a CTR 002 clock tick occurs in a way thatis described hereafter as part of the output port operation. The PD isused to distinguish between multiple positions within a time frame andis sent by a serial transmitter 49 upon receipt of a position delimiterinput 47B.

It is necessary to distinguish in an unambiguous manner between the datawords, which carry the information, and the control signal or words(e.g., the TFD is a control signal) over the serial link 41. There aremany ways to do this. One way is to use the known 4B/5B encoding scheme(used in FDDI). In this scheme, every 8-bit character is divided intotwo 4-bit parts and then each part is encoded into a 5-bit codeword thatis transmitted over the serial link 41.

In a preferred embodiment, the serial transmitter 49 and receiver 31 arecomprised of AM7968 and AM7969 chip sets, respectively, bothmanufactured by AMD Corporation.

FIG. 5B illustrates an encoding table from 4-bit data to 5-bit serialcodeword. The 4B/5B is a redundant encoding scheme, which means thatthere are more codeword than data words. Consequently, some of theunused or redundant serial codeword can be used to convey controlinformation.

FIG. 5C is a table with 15 possible encoded control codewords, which canbe used for transferring the time frame delimiter (TFD) over a seriallink. The TFD transfer is completely transparent to the data transfer,and therefore, it can be sent in the middle of the data packettransmission in a non-destructive manner.

When the communication links 41 are SONET/SDH, the time frame delimitercannot be embedded as redundant serial codeword, since SONET/SDH serialencoding is based on scrambling with no redundancy. Consequently, theTFD is implemented using the SONET/SDH frame control fields: transportoverhead (TOH) and path overhead (POH). Note that although SONET/SDHuses a 125 microseconds frame, it cannot be used directly in accordancewith the present invention, at the moment, since SONET/SDH frames arenot globally aligned and are also not aligned to UTC. However, ifSONET/SDH frames are globally aligned, SONET/SDH can be used compatiblywith the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a schematic block diagram of an input port of the presentinvention, which comprises a serial receiver 31 (which is connected toone or plurality of uniquely addressable optical WDM (wavelengthdivision multiplexing) channels), an input controller 35, a plurality ofoutput scheduling controllers (36-1 to 36-N, collectively 36), and anN-to-k multiplexer 38. Referring simultaneously to FIGS. 5 and 7, theserial receiver 31 transfers the received data packets (31C), the timeframe delimiters (31A), and the position delimiters (31B) to the routingcontroller 35.

The input controller 35 comprises a routing controller 35B that isconstructed of a central processing unit (CPU), a random access memory(RAM) for storing the data packets, read only memory (ROM) for storingthe routing controller processing program; and a routing table 35D thatis used for determining which respective ones of the output schedulingcontrollers 36 that the incoming data packet should be switched to.

FIG. 6A is an illustration of a data packet structure with a header thatincludes a time stamp, two priority bits, a multi-cast bit, and anattached time of arrival (ToA), port number, and link type. As shown inFIG. 6A, the packet header together with the attached time of arrival(ToA), port number, and link type constitute a scheduling header. Thescheduling header is used for scheduling the data packet switching frominput to output. FIG. 6B is additional detail about the encoding of thepriority and multi-cast bits of FIG. 6A.

In one embodiment, an incoming data packet consists of a header and apayload portion. The header includes, as shown in FIGS. 6A and 6B, atime stamp value 35TS, a multi-cast indication 35M, a priorityindication 35P, and a virtual PID indication 35C. The priorityindication 35P may include encoding of a high and a low priority. In analternate embodiment, multiple levels of priority are encoded bypriority indication 35P. In a preferred embodiment, the multiple levelsof priority include Constant Bit Rate (CBR) priority, Variable Bit Rate(VBR) priority, “best-effort” (BE) priority, and Rescheduled priority.The multi-cast indication 35M may include encoding indicating onedestination or a plurality of destinations. In the case of a pluralityof destinations there can be one or more PIDs.

The data packet header in FIG. 6A further comprises of a 2-bit, L1/L2,field 35L, which provides information regarding this data packetlocation within a stream of data packets that are part of the same SVPor the same call/connection. As shown in FIG. 6B, the meaning of thisfield is as follows: L1/L2=00—first data packet location in the flow(SVP)—compute a schedule; L1/L2=00—middle data packet location in theflow—same as the previous schedule; L1/L2=10—last data packet locationin the flow (SVP)—same as the previous schedule; L1/L2=11—decode thisdata packet address and schedule it regardless of its location.

The main motivation for having the L1/L2 bits in field 35L is forminimizing the scheduling delay. A data packet in the middle of a flowof the same SVP/call/connection will use the same schedule to get acrossthe switching fabric as a predecessor data packet in this flow. Thisimplies that only decoding of the PID 35C is needed in order todetermine to which output port the incoming data packet should beswitched to.

Referring back to FIG. 7, the incoming data packet header includes avirtual pipe identification, PID 35C, that is used to lookup in therouting table 35D the address 35E of the output scheduling controllers36 that the incoming data packet should be switched to.

Before the incoming data packet is transferred into its outputscheduling controller(s) 36, the time of arrival (ToA) information 35Tis attached to the data packet header as illustrated in FIGS. 6A and 6B.The ToA information is the value of the common time reference (CTR)signal 002 at the time the incoming data packet arrived at the inputport. In a preferred embodiment, the ToA 35T may additionally comprise aport number, a link type indication, and the wavelength it was receivedon: 41-1 to 41-k (in FIG. 1). The ToA 35T is used by the schedulingcontroller 45 of the output port 40 in the computation of the forwardingtime out of the output port, as shown in FIG. 17. Note that the ToA 35Tvalue that is appended to the incoming data packet and is distinct andseparate from the time stamp value 35TS that is included as part of theincoming data packet header. As shown in FIG. 9, after the incoming datapacket has the ToA information appended to it, it is routed by therouting controller 35B via respective buses (31-1, 31-N) to therespective appropriate output scheduling controller (36-1, 36-N).

The ToA 35T and time stamp 35TS can have a plurality of numericalformats. One example is the format of the Network Time Protocol [D.Mills, Network Time Protocol (version 3) IETF RFC 1305] which is inseconds relative to Oh UTC on 1 Jan. 1900. The full resolution NTPtimestamp is a 64-bit unsigned fixed point number with the integer partin the first 32 bits and the fractional part in the last 32 bits. Insome fields where a more compact representation is appropriate, only themiddle 32 bits are used; that is, the low 16 bits of the integer partand the high 16 bits of the fractional part. The high 16 bits of theinteger part must be determined independently.

The incoming data packet can have various formats, such as but notlimited to Internet protocol version 4 (IPv4), Internet protocol version6 (IPv6), and asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) cells. The data packet'sPID 35C can be determined by but is not limited to one of the following:an Internet protocol (IP) address, an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM),virtual circuit identifier, a virtual path identifier (VCI/VPI),Internet protocol version 6 (IPv6) addresses, Internet Multi ProtocolLabel Swapping (MPLS) or tag switching labels, and an IEEE 802 MAC(media access control) address.

As shown in FIG. 7, each respective one of the output schedulingcontrollers 36 can issue input request messages 61 to the switchscheduler 60 (not shown). Each respective one of the output schedulingcontrollers 36 can also receive input schedule messages 62 and inputreject messages 63 from the switch scheduler 60. Further, eachrespective one of the output scheduling controllers 36 also receives aslot clock output signal 65 from the switch scheduler 60. Eachrespective one of the output scheduling controllers 36 includes aplurality of queues, as will be illustrated in greater detail in FIGS. 9and 10.

FIG. 8 illustrates the flow chart for the input controller 35 processingprogram executed by the routing controller 35B. The program isresponsive to two basic events from the serial receiver 31 of FIG. 7:the received time frame delimiter TFD at step 35-01, and the receivedata packet at step 35-02. After receiving a TFD, the routing controller35 computes the time of arrival (ToA) 35T value at step 35-03 that is tobe attached or appended to the incoming data packets.

For the computation of the ToA information 35T the routing controlleruses a constant, Dconst, which is the time difference between the commontime reference (CTR) 002 tick and the reception of the TFD at time t2(generated on an adjacent switch by the CTR 002 on that node). This timedifference is caused by the fact that the delay from the serialtransmitter 49 to the serial receiver 31 is not an integer number oftime frames.

When the data packet is received at step 35-04, the routing controller35B executes the five operations as set forth in step 35-04: attach theToA information, lookup the address of the queue 36 using the PID,storing the data packet in that queue 36, decode and process multi-castindication 35M, and since in step 35-05 it was determined that L1/L2=00then the above routing information is stored in the ROUTE-STOREvariable.

The first operation of step 35-04 attaches or appends the ToAinformation computed in step 35-03 to the incoming data packet. The ToAinformation 35T may also include link type and port information, asdiscussed above. The second operation in step 35-04 uses the PID 35C toreference the lookup table 35D to determine the address of the outputport 35E of the selected output port queue. The third operation of step35-04 copies, forwards, or transfers the incoming data packet to thequeue 36 responsive to the address 35E.

The fourth operation of 35-04 (decode and process multi-cast indication)may also comprise the method of copying the incoming data packet withappended or attached ToA information into a plurality of the queues 36to effect a simultaneous multi-cast forwarding operation where theincoming data packet is simultaneously forwarded to more than one outputport queue.

The fifth operation of 35-04 saves the routing information in theROUTE-STORE variable information that will be used to skip thescheduling step for the successive data packet with the same PID. Thesepackets will be routed into the FAST part of the queues B-1 through B-k′in FIGS. 9 and 10.

In step 35-06 in FIG. 8 for L1/L2=01 or L1/L2=10 a data packet is storedin the FAST part of the queues B-1 through B-k′ in FIGS. 9 and 10, andconsequently this data packet receives the same schedule to betransferred across the switch as previous data packets with same PID.

FIG. 9 is a schematic block diagram of an embodiment of an outputscheduling controller 36-i (i.e., where i is in the range 1 to N,examples including 36-1 and 36-N). The output scheduling controller 36-icomprises a packet scheduling and rescheduling controller (PSRC) 36A, aselect buffer and congestion controller (SBCC) 36D, and a random accessmemory (RAM) 36C. The random access memory 36C comprises a plurality ofqueues B-1, B-2, ^(o)B-k′, and B-E (for “best effort” data packets).

The PSRC 36A is constructed of a central processing unit (CPU), a randomaccess memory (RAM) for storing the data packet, read only memory (ROM)for storing the packet scheduling and rescheduling controller processingprogram; and a forwarding table 36B that is used for determining whichrespective ones of the output scheduling controller queues B-1, B-2,^(o)B-k′, and B-E within 36C that the incoming data packet should beswitched to.

The PSRC 36A receives a common time reference signal 002 from the commontime reference means 20 (not shown) and accepts input reject messages 63from the switch scheduler 60 (also not shown). The PSRC also receives aninput 31-i (i.e., where is in the range 1 to N, examples including 31-1and 31-N of FIG. 7). The PSRC issues input request messages 61 to theswitch scheduler. Common time reference 002, input schedule messages 62and the slot clock signal 65 are received by the SBCC 36D.

The PSRC forwarding table 36B of FIG. 9 uses information contained in anarriving data packet's time stamp value 35TS, the multi-cast indication35M, the priority indication 35P, the virtual PID indication 35C, andthe time of arrival (ToA) information 35T to produce the selection 36F.The selection 36F then indicates which respective ones of the pluralityof queues (B-1, B-2, ^(o)B-k′, and B-E) the data packet should beinserted into.

Within each of the queues B-1, B-2, ^(o) and B-k′ are a plurality ofsub-queues CBR, VBR, FAST, and MCST (not shown explicitly, sincemulticast implies that a data packet is copied to multiple queues tomultiple output ports). The sub-queues are used to differentiate betweenthe different types of data packet traffic entering each queue, asconstant bit rate (CBR), variable bit rate (VBR), best-effort, and FAST(for data with pre-computed switching schedules).

The SBCC 36D is constructed of a central processing unit (CPU), a randomaccess memory (RAM) for storing data packets, and a read only memory(ROM) for storing the select buffer and congestion controller processingprogram. The SBCC 36D produces an output 37-i (i.e., where i is in therange 1 to N, examples including 37-1 and 37-N).

FIG. 10 shows an alternate embodiment of the output schedulingcontroller 36-i (i.e., where i is in the range 1 to N, examplesincluding 36-1 and 36-N) in accordance with the present invention. Theoutput scheduling controller 36-i comprises a packet scheduling andrescheduling controller (PSRC) 36A, a select buffer and congestioncontroller (SBCC) 36D, and a random access memory (RAM) 36C. The RAM 36Ccomprises a plurality of queues B-1, B-2, and so on. The PSRC 36A isconstructed of a central processing unit (CPU), a random access memory(RAM) for storing the data packet, read only memory (ROM) for storingthe packet scheduling and rescheduling controller processing program;and a routing table that is used with information contained in anarriving data packet's time stamp value 35TS, the multi-cast indication35M, the priority indication 35P, the virtual PID indication 35C, andthe time of arrival (ToA) information 35T for determining whichrespective ones of the output scheduling controller queues (e.g., B-1,B-2) that the incoming data packet should be switched to.

The SBCC 36D is constructed of a central processing unit (CPU), a randomaccess memory (RAM) for storing data packets, and a read only memory(ROM) for storing the select buffer and congestion controller processingprogram. The SBCC is additionally coupled to the RAM 36C by read signals36R1, 36R2, and so forth, respectively to queues B-1, B-2, and so forth.The signals 36R1, 36R2 et. al., permit the SBCC to select which of thesub-queues (e.g., CBR, VBR, FAST) of queues B-1, B-2 et. al., to read.

The SBCC 36D has a feedback output 36R which is coupled to the PSRC 36A.The feedback output 36R is used to indicate that one or more packetsqueued for scheduled transmission did not successfully transmit. ThePSRC uses the output 36R to reschedule and re-enqueue the missed packetin the RAM 36C. The SBCC produces an output 37-i (i.e., where i is inthe range 1 to N, examples including 37-1 and 37-N).

The SBCC (of both FIGS. 9 and 10) are responsive to the slot clock 65and the input schedule messages 62 from the switch scheduler 60 toselect a data packet within 36C to forward to output 37-i. At selectedtimes determined by the switch scheduler, and responsive to theaforementioned slot clock 65 and input schedule messages 62, the SBCC ineach respective output schedule controller 36-i provides data packets tothe switch fabric 50.

The slot clock 65 can be aligned with the common time reference (CTR)002, in which case the slot clock can be generated by dividing each timeframe (defined by the CTR) by a constant number that is equal or greaterthan 1.

The PSRC (of both FIGS. 9 and 10) are responsive to data packets viainput 31-i to generate input request messages 61 to send to the switchscheduler 60. If the input request message is unable to be honored bythe switch scheduler, an input reject message 63 is returned to thePSRC.

The RAM 36C (of both FIGS. 9 and 10) provides the function of enqueuingdata packets known to be scheduled from the PSRC and dequeuing the datapackets requested by the SBCC.

Each of the queues B-1, B-2, et. al., is designated for storage of datapackets that will be forwarded in each of the respective time frames inevery time cycle, as shown in FIG. 4. Data packets which have lowpriority, as determined by priority indicator 35P, are switched to thequeue B-E for “best effort” transmission. Low priority traffic isnon-reserved and may include “best effort” traffic and rescheduled datapackets.

FIG. 11 is a flow diagram describing the operation of the packetscheduling and rescheduling controllers 36A (of FIGS. 9 and 10). Flowstarts at 36-03, in which the determination of whether a data packet hasbeen received from routing controller 35B is made. Upon receipt of thedata packet, in step 36-04 the time stamp value 35TS, the multi-castindication 35M, the priority indication 35P, the virtual PID indication35C, and the time of arrival (ToA) information 35T are used to lookupthe forward parameter 36F in the forwarding table 36B.

If a data packet has not been received at step 36-03, flow proceeds tostep 36-06 where the determination is made if a input reject message 63has been received from the switch scheduler 60. If there has been noinput reject message received, flow continues from 36-03.

If an input reject message has been received, at step 36-07 a check ismade to see if the data packet which was rejected has been previouslyrejected. After a predefined number of rejections, the data packet isdiscarded as being undeliverable and flow continues at step 36-03. Ifthis is only the first rejection, flow continues at step 36-04.

Upon completing step 36-04, the next operation is at step 36-05 tocompute the index of the forwarding buffer within the RAM 36C (i.e.,compute the address of the queue in which to place the packet). Thisaddress calculation may also include determination of which sub-queue inwhich to place the data packet (e.g., constant bit rate, variable bitrate, best-effort, and multicast). Upon placing the data packet at thecorrect corresponding index within the RAM 36C, flow continues at step36-03.

FIG. 12 illustrates details of the input request message 61, inputschedule message 62, and input reject message 63 of the presentinvention. In the preferred embodiment, the input request message 61comprises the six fields relating to the packet: the global time forswitching, the input port number, the output port number, positionwithin the buffer, priority and/or type, and the size. At least onerequest is made for every data packet to be switched, thus for amulticast data packet (one intended to be forwarded to multipledestinations simultaneously) a plurality of requests must be made, onefor each destination.

In the preferred embodiment, the input schedule message 62 comprises thesix fields relating to the packet: the global time for switching, theinput port number, the output port number, position within the buffer,priority and/or type, and a list (s1, s2, . . . ). One schedule messageis issued for every data packet scheduled to be switched, thus for amulticast data packet a plurality of schedule messages will be issued,one for each successfully scheduled destination. The list in the inputschedule message comprises a series of time slot size pairs, whereineach pair includes a time slot in which the data packet is scheduled,and a size indication for each data unit to be switched. The accumulatedsize of all the size indications in a list is at least the size of theinput request message size field.

In the preferred embodiment, the input reject message 63 comprises thesix fields relating to the packet: the global time for switching, theinput port number, the output port number, position within the buffer,priority and/or type, and the size. One rejection is issued for everydata packet that failed to be scheduled, thus for a multicast datapacket it is possible to receive a plurality of input reject messages,one for each failed destination.

The flow chart for the program executed by the select buffer andcongestion controller 36D of FIGS. 9 and 10 is illustrated in FIG. 13.The controller 36D determines if a common time reference (CTR) 002 tick(e.g., a pulse or selected transition of the CTR signal) is received atstep 36D-11. If the common time reference tick is received, step 36D-13increments the transmit buffer index i (i.e., i:=i+1 mod k′, where k′ isthe number of queues in RAM 36C for scheduled traffic, one for each timeframe in a time cycle). The controller 36D also resets a time slotcounter before resuming flow at step 36D-11.

At step 36D-12, a determination is made whether a slot clock tick (e.g.,a pulse or selected transition of the slot clock signal 65) hasoccurred. If not, flow continues at step 36D-11. If so, the time slotcounter is incremented by one and flow continues with step 36D-15.

At step 36D-15, the present time slot counter value is used to determineif a scheduled data unit should be forwarded out of queue B-i accordingto the scheduling information in any pending input schedule messages 62that have been received by the SBCC from the switch scheduler 60. If so,the appropriate data unit is de-queued from the queue B-i and output,and the corresponding respective input schedule message is retired. Flowthen continues at step 36D-11.

FIG. 14 illustrates the four pipelined forwarding phases of forwardingdata packets as in the present invention. The phases are numbered phase1, phase 2, phase 3, and phase 4. In the preferred embodiment, eachphase is accomplished over a period of time equal to one time frame.

In phase 1, a data packet is received by the input port serial receiverand forwarded to the routing controller 35B where an attachment is madeto the data packet header. This attachment includes the ToA 35T and mayinclude other information such as but not limited to port number andlink type. Also performed in phase 1 is a routing step by the routingcontroller 35B which directs the data packet to the corresponding outputschedule controller(s), as determined by the multicast indication 35M inthe header.

In phase 2, the packet scheduling and rescheduling controller 36Areceives the data packet from the routing controller and sends an inputrequest message to the switch scheduler 60. The switch schedulercomputes the schedule (on the basis of all requests from all PSRCs) andreturns one of an input schedule message or an input reject message. Ifan input schedule message is received, the PSRC en-queues the datapacket for switching in the RAM 36C.

In phase 3, the SBCC 36D de-queues and forwards to the switching fabric50 data units responsive to the switch scheduler input schedulemessages. The switching fabric immediately forwards the switched dataunits to the correct output port 40.

In phase 4, the output port 40 forwards the data packet received fromthe switch fabric 50 to the serial transmitter 49 out to one of the WDMcommunications channels 41-1 through 41-k.

Note that each data packet is comprised of one or more data units,consequently, in phase 3 data units are switched from input to output.However, in phase 4 data packets are forwarded from the output port tothe network.

FIG. 15 is a schematic block diagram of the four pipelined forwardingphases of forwarding data packets as in the present invention. As shownin the illustration, data packets in phase 1 are propagated, through thePSRC 36A of the input ports 30 of the SVP switch 10, to the RAM 36C inthe input ports 30. In phase 2 the data packet scheduling is done withspecific schedule for each of its data units. In phase 3 Data units aretransited to the switching fabric and are propagated to the output port40 and assembled back into their original data packet. Data packets inphase 4 are propagated entirely through the SVP switch 10 and areforwarded to their next switch or destination.

It is to be noted that a data packet need not always to advance from onephase to the next as time frames occur. Specifically, a data packetwhose input request message 61 has been rejected (i.e., 63) may remainin phase 2 to be rescheduled, or may be discarded, thereby droppingphases 3 and 4.

FIG. 16 is a schematic block diagram of one embodiment of the switchingfabric 50 of the present invention: a crossbar switch. There are variousways to implement a crossbar switching fabric. As shown, a5-input-by-5-output crossbar switch comprises a plurality of inputs(e.g., In1, In2, In3, In4, In5) selectively coupled in every possiblecombination with a plurality of outputs (e.g., Out1, Out2, Out3, Out4,Out5). In the preferred embodiment, the number of switch fabric crossbarinputs 37 are equal to the number of input ports 30 and are connected ina one-to-one relationship, respectively. Also in the preferredembodiment, the number of switch fabric crossbar outputs 51 are equal tothe number of the output ports 40 and are connected in a one-to-onerelationship, respectively. More specifically, for N input ports switchthere should be an N-input-by-N-output crossbar fabric.

Each selective coupling of the crossbar switch can be uniquelyidentified by the corresponding input port i and the output port j. Theswitch scheduler 60 assembles a composite union of all issued andpending input schedule messages 62 that have been issued to the SBCCs36D, and produces a fabric schedule message 64. The fabric schedulemessage for a given time frame includes the set of all selectivecouplings of input ports i to output ports j at time slots t within thecurrent time frame, and can thus be abbreviated as S(i,j,t). In thepreferred embodiment, at every time slot t an input port i can beconnected to one or more output ports j to support multicast operations.Within the time frame corresponding to phase 3, the switch fabriccrossbar thus is configured in a series of connections, one (possiblynon-unique) configuration for each time slot, responsive to the fabricschedule message.

FIG. 17 is a schematic block diagram of an output port in accordancewith the present invention. The output port 40 comprises a schedulingcontroller 45, a k-to-N demultiplexer 42A, an N-to-k multiplexer 42B,and a serial transmitter 49. The scheduling controller (SC) 45 isconstructed of a central processing unit (CPU), a random access memory(RAM) for storing the data packet, and read only memory (ROM) forstoring the controller processing program. The SC also comprises aplurality of reassemble controllers (e.g., 43-1, 43-N, collectively as43), one for each time slot. The SC receives the common time reference002 and the slot clock 65 from the switch scheduler 60 (not shown).

Each time frame as specified by the common time reference 002 isconsidered to be one of an even tick or an odd tick. The determinationof even tick vs. odd tick is made relative to the beginning of a timecycle. In the preferred embodiment, the first time frame of a time cycleis determined to be an odd tick, the second time frame of the time cycleis determined to be an even tick, the third time frame of the time cycleis determined to be an odd tick, and so forth, where the determinationof even tick vs. odd tick alternates as shown for the duration of thetime cycle. In an alternate embodiment, the first time frame of a timecycle is determined to be an even tick, the second time frame of thetime cycle is determined to be an odd tick, the third time frame of thetime cycle is determined to be an even tick, and so forth, where thedetermination of even tick vs. odd tick alternates as shown for theduration of the time cycle. The actual sequence of even ticks vs. oddticks of time frames within a time cycle may be arbitrarily started withno loss in generality.

The k-to-N demultiplexer 42A accepts data units from the crossbar switchfabric 50 (not shown) and directs the accepted data to one of theplurality of reassemble controllers 43 responsive to the current timeslot number.

Each respective reassemble controller (e.g., 43-1, 43-N) comprises aneven queue and an odd queue, and accepts data units from the k-to-Ndemultiplexer 42A during a respective time slot and assembles that dataunits into outbound data packets in exclusively one of the even and oddqueue responsive to the current time frame. As explained above,predefined ticks of the common time reference signal are defined to beeven, and others are defined to be odd. The queues permit reassembly ofdata packets that may have been divided up into a series of data unitsin the process of traversing the input ports and the crossbar switchfabric.

During even ticks of the common time reference 002, the even queue ofeach reassemble controller 43 accepts data from the k-to-N demultiplexerfor the duration of its corresponding respective time slot, and if oddpacket assembly has completed, the odd queue supplies a data packetoutput to the N-to-k multiplexer 42B.

During odd ticks of the common time reference 002, the odd queue of eachreassemble controller 43 accepts data from the k-to-N demultiplexer forthe duration of its corresponding respective time slot, and if evenpacket assembly has completed, the even queue supplies a data packetoutput to the N-to-k multiplexer 42B.

The N-to-k multiplexer 42B selects among the data packets made availableto it from the reassemble controllers 43 and provides an output 47C tothe serial transmitter 49. The serial transmitter 49 provides an outputto the communication link 41 as discussed in detail with respect toFIGS. 5A, 5B, and 5C.

FIG. 18 is a flow diagram describing the operation of a pipelinedforwarding phase of the output port of FIG. 17. Flow starts and holds atstep 43-11 until a determination is made that a complete data unit hasbeen received from the switching fabric. When a complete data unit hasbeen received, flow continues at step 43-12 where the received data unitis added to the appropriate odd or even queue, as discussed in detailabove. Upon adding the received data unit to the queue, flow continuesto step 43-13 where a check is made to see if the received data unitcompletes an entire data packet. If an end-of-packet indication isdetected in step 43-13, flow continues with step 43-14 where thecompleted data packet is marked for release to the output controller 45.If an end-of-packet indication was not detected in step 43-13, flowcontinues with the hold at step 43-11.

FIG. 19 is a flow diagram describing the operation of the otherpipelined forwarding phase of the output port of FIG. 17. Flow startsand holds at step 45-21 until a common time reference tick, as discussedabove, is received. Upon receiving the common time reference tick, thetick is determined to be an odd tick or an even tick in step 45-22. Upondetermining the tick to be even in step 45-22, flow continues with step45-23 in which all marked data packets in the even queues are madeavailable for transmission via the k-to-N demultiplexer 42B and serialtransmitter 49 of FIG. 17. Upon completion of transmission of all markeddata packets in the even queues, flow continues at the hold of step45-21. Upon determining the tick to be odd in step 45-22, flow continueswith step 45-24 in which all marked data packets in the odd queues aremade available for transmission via the N-to-k demultiplexer 42B andserial transmitter 49 of FIG. 17. Upon completion of transmission of allmarked data packets in the odd queues, flow continues at the hold ofstep 45-21.

FIG. 20 is a flow diagram describing the operation of the switchscheduler 60 of FIG. 1. Flow starts and holds at step 60-01, until atick of the common time reference 002 is detected. Flow then continuesat step 60-02, in which input request messages 61 are received from anyones of the input ports 30 (see FIG. 7). Step 60-02 includes thescheduling computation of which of the input schedule requests can beserviced by the switch scheduler 60. Responsive to the schedulingcomputation of step 60-02, flow continues to step 60-03 where threekinds of output messages are generated by the switch scheduler 60: (1)input schedule messages 62 are relayed back to the appropriate selectbuffer and congestion controllers 36D in each of the input ports 30 thathave been granted a schedule for data; (2) input reject messages 63 arerelayed back to the appropriate packet scheduling and reschedulingcontrollers 36A in each of the input ports 30 that have been denied aschedule for data; and (3) a fabric schedule 64 is relayed to thecrossbar switch fabric 50 to schedule data units for transit across theswitch fabric.

FIG. 21 illustrates details of the scheduling computation of step 60-02in the switch scheduler 60. As shown, the switch scheduler 60 maintainsa schedule of all possible time slots for each input port i within atime frame, and also a schedule of all possible time slots for eachoutput port j within the same time frame. For a given input schedulerequest to transit the switch fabric from input port i to output port j,a search is made in the corresponding time slot schedules forsimultaneous availability of the same time slot in both time slotschedules for each of the time slots. If both the input port i time slotschedule and the output port j time slot schedule have availability at agiven time slot t, then (1) time slot t is marked in both time slotschedules as in use; (2) an input schedule message is issued to inputport i; and (3) an entry S(i,j,t) is logged into the fabric schedulemessage to the crossbar switch fabric (refer to FIG. 16 and accompanyingdescription, above).

FIG. 22 is a functional block diagram illustrating additional details ofthe scheduling computation of step 60-02 of FIG. 20. Within the switchscheduler 60 is a switch scheduling controller (SSC) 66, an inputavailability table 67, and an output availability table 68. The SSC 66is constructed of a central processing unit (CPU), a random accessmemory (RAM) for storing the availability tables, and read only memory(ROM) for storing the controller processing program. The SSC receivesthe common time reference 002 and generates the slot clock 65 output(not shown). The SSC also receives input request messages 61, andgenerates input schedule messages 62, input reject messages 63, and thecrossbar switch fabric's fabric schedule 64.

As discussed above with respect to FIGS. 1, 20, and 21, the switchscheduler 60 maintains a schedule of all possible time slots for eachinput port i within a time frame in the input availability table 67. Theswitch scheduler 60 also maintains a schedule of all possible time slotsfor each output port j within a time frame in the output availabilitytable 68. For a given input schedule request to transit the switchfabric from input port i to output port j, the SSC 66 uses the inputport number i to index 67A into the input availability table 67producing an input availability vector 67B, and the SSC 66 uses theoutput port number j to index 68A into the output availability table 68producing an output availability vector 68B. A search is made in thecorresponding availability vectors 67B, 68B for simultaneousavailability of the same time slot in both time slot schedules for eachof the time slots.

FIG. 23 illustrates further details of the scheduling computation ofstep 60-02 of FIGS. 20 and 21. As discussed above with respect to FIG.12, an input schedule request is made for each data packet to beswitched. However, the data packet may be sufficiently large as torequire multiple time slots for multiple data units to transit theswitch fabric 50. As a result of this multiple time slot requirement,the switch scheduling controller 66 may produce a plurality of inputschedule messages, one for each of a number of data units, each dataunit no larger than the amount of data that can transit the switchfabric in the duration of one time slot.

The computation 60-10, as shown in FIG. 23, describes the initializationand operation of the tables of vectors as discussed above with respectto FIG. 21. At the beginning of each time frame, the input and outputavailability tables are cleared to indicate all time slots areavailable. Then for each data unit to be scheduled, the SSC 66 examineseach entry in both the input availability vector 67B and the outputavailability vector 68B looking for the first time slot that hasavailability in both vectors 67B, 68B. Finding such a time slotdetermines the slot number in which the data unit to be transferredshould be scheduled to transit the crossbar switch fabric 50.

Switching with Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM)

In the following the configuration in which the communication link hasmultiple wavelength channels or wavelength division multiplexing (WDM)is specified. This configuration is called WDM-switching. Many aspectsof WDM-switching remain the same as was specified before, and therefore,will not be specified again.

As shown in FIGS. 1, 24 and 26, the input ports and output ports of aswitch are connected to a plurality of wavelength channels. FIG. 26depicts two channels: G or green channel that is connected to 41-1, andR or red channel that is connected to 41-k. The time over each channelis partitioned in accordance to the common time reference (CTR)—asillustrated in FIG. 2. Time frames are grouped into time cycles (in FIG.26, time frames G1-G4 are grouped into a time cycle, and time framesR1-R4 are grouped into a time cycle on another channel), and time cyclesare grouped into super-cycles, wherein a super-cycle can be aligned withUTC (Coordinated Universal Time), which is globally available via, forexample, GPS (Global Positioning System). In practical environments thesuper-cycle duration is equal to one second as measured using the UTC(Coordinated Universal Time) standard. In an alternate embodiment thesuper-cycle duration spans multiple UTC seconds or is a fraction of oneUTC second.

Note that in a different embodiment the time frame duration and timecycle duration can be different on different wavelength channels.

In WDM-switching one of the main objectives is to reduce the switchingand scheduling complexities. Several methods for doing it are specified.

Method 1: FAST Switching (Following FIGS. 24-25)

In FAST switching an incoming data packet is switched, by the routingcontroller 35B in FIG. 7, to the one or more queues, selected from 36-1through 36-N, that are associated with the output ports the incomingdata packet should be forwarded from. The data packet is stored by thepacket scheduling and rescheduling controller (PSRC) in the FAST part ofone of the B-1 through B-k′ in FIG. 9.

Data packets that are stored in the FAST part of a queue havepre-computed schedules for being switched from input to output, andtherefore, skip phase 2 of scheduling and rescheduling at TF(t+1), asshown in FIG. 15. Instead as illustrated in FIG. 24, there are onlythree pipelined forwarding phases for forwarding data packets as in thepresent invention. The phases are numbered phase 1′, phase 2′, and phase3′. In the preferred embodiment, each phase is accomplished over aperiod of time equal to one time frame.

In phase 1′, shown in FIG. 24, a data packet is received by the inputport serial receiver and forwarded to the routing controller 35B (shownin FIG. 7) where an attachment is made to the data packet header. Thisattachment includes the Time of Arrival (ToA) 35T and may include otherinformation such as but not limited to port number and WDM channelnumber: one of 41-1 through 41-k. Also performed in phase 1 is a routingstep by the routing controller 35B which directs the data packet to oneor more of the corresponding output schedule controller(s), asdetermined by the multicast indication 35M in the data packet header, aswas defined in FIG. 6.

In phase 2, the SBCC 36D (in FIG. 9 and FIG. 10) de-queues and forwardsdata units responsive to the fabric controller 52 switching matrices2500, as shown in FIG. 25, which determines to which output port andwhen a data unit will be switched by the switching fabric 50. Theswitching fabric responsive to the switching matrices forwards theswitched data units to the correct output port 40.

In phase 3, the output port 40 forwards the data packet received fromthe switch fabric 50 to the serial transmitter 49 and to a selected oneof the WDM channels 41-1 through 41-k, as shown in FIG. 17.

Note that each data packet is comprised of one or more data units. Inphase 2, data units are switched from input to output, and in phase 3,data packets are forwarded from the output port to the network.

The fast switching from the FAST queues is performed in accordance toswitching information stored in a plurality of switching matrices 2500in FIG. 25. In general, there is a different matrix for every time slot.Therefore, if there are s—slot positions in a time frame, f framepositions in a time cycle, and c cycle positions in a super-cycle, thenthe total number of switching matrices 2500 S(i,j,t), is s*f*c. InS(i,j,t) the variable i indicates the time slot position in the timeframe, the variables indicates the time frame position in the timecycle, the variable t indicates the time cycle position in thesuper-cycle.

Each switching matrix has an element for each input-output pair,consequently, if there are four input ports and four output ports thetotal number of elements in each matrix is sixteen, as shown, forexample, in FIG. 25. The value in the elements in each matrix can be oftwo types: type=0—temporary value in this switching matrix, andtherefore, used only once, and type=1—permanent value in this switchingmatrix, and therefore, used multiple times.

For switching out of the FAST queue, the permanent values are used. Ifthe traffic pattern is fixed the switching matrices contain onlypermanent values.

In Method 2 below, it is shown how setting up the permanent values inthe switching matrices can be done on the fly by the next data packet inthe stream.

Method 2: “Train” switching through the FAST queues

The objective of “train” switching is twofold:

1. To avoid the Phase 2 (the scheduling and rescheduling operations) inFIG. 15—as much as possible, and

2. To avoid the need of setting up the permanent values in the switchingmatrices prior to the transmission of data packets of a real time flow.

There are various ways to achieve the above two objectives. One simpleway is using the first set data packets in the time frame, time cycle orsuper-cycle for setting up the permanent values in the switchingmatrices 2500 in FIG. 25. For example, if a certain PID has atransmission pattern of three data packets that are transmitted in threepredefined time frames of each time cycle, then the first three datapacket will use Phase 2 (the scheduling and rescheduling operations) inFIG. 15—while subsequent data packets over this PID will be switchedfrom the FAST queues using the permanent values as specified in Phase 2′in FIG. 25.

One way to identify the first data packets in a stream or flow over asynchronous virtual pipe (SVP) with a predefined PID is to encode thisinformation in the data packet header. This can be done as was specifiedin FIG. 6.

The data packet header in FIG. 6A comprises a 2-bit, L1/L2, field 35L,which provides information regarding this data packet location within astream of data packets the are part of the same SVP of the samecall/connection.

As shown in FIG. 6B, the meaning of this field is as follows:

Σ Setup: L1/L2=00—first set of data packets in the flow (SVP)—compute aschedule as was specified in Phase 2 (the scheduling and reschedulingoperations) in FIG. 15;

Σ Run-time: L1/L2=01—subsequent data packets that are transferred viathe same SVP and use previously computed schedules; and

Σ Release: L1/L2=10—last set of data packets in the flow (SVP)—usepreviously computed schedules and release the permanent values in theswitching matrices 2500 so they can be used by other real timeflow/call/connections.

Note, as shown in FIGS. 9 and 10, per time frame queuing is performed,that every phase in FIGS. 15 and 24 is one time frame, and that theorder of transmission of different flows from the same FAST queue can bearbitrary. This fact simplifies the scheduling and timing requirementfrom the switch design and distinguishes this approach from circuitswitching.

The next two methods were optimized for very high speed operation. Inmethod 3, the switching is still done electronically, while in method 4the switching is optical.

Method 3: Time Frame Switching and Forwarding (FIGS. 26-29)

A novel time frame switching fabric control is provided by the presentinvention which stores a predefined sequence of switch fabricconfigurations, responsive to a high level controller that coordinatesmultiple switching systems, and applies the stored predefined sequenceof switch fabric configurations on a cyclical basis having complexperiodicity. The application of the stored predefined switch fabricconfigurations permits the switches of the present invention to relaydata over predefined, scheduled, and/or reserved data channels withoutthe computational overhead of computing those schedules ad infinitumwithin each switch. This frees the switch computation unit to operaterelatively autonomously to handle transient requests for local trafficreservation requests without changing the predefined switch fabricconfigurations at large, wherein the switch computation unit providesfor finding routes for such transient requests by determining how toutilize underused switch bandwidth (i.e., “holes” in the predefinedusage). The computational requirements of determining a smallincremental change to a switch fabric are much less than having tore-compute the entire switch fabric configuration. Further, thebookkeeping operations associated with the incremental changes aresignificantly less time-consuming to track than tracking the entirestate of the switch fabric as it changes over time.

In this method 3, the content of the whole time frame is switched in thesame way—namely, all the data packets in the time frame are switched tothe same output port. Consequently, there is no need to use time slots.FIG. 28 shows an example of time frame (TF) switching and forwardingthrough a sequence of the switches: Switch A, Switch B, and Switch C.According to this specific example, the content of a TF that wasforwarded from Switch A at time frame 2 will reach Switch B at timeframe 5, then switched to the output port at time 6, then—forwarded attime frame 7 and will reach Switch C at time frame 9.

The method of time frame switching is extremely useful in reducing theswitching complexity of communications systems with a very hightransmission rate (e.g., OC-48, OC-192, OC-768) and/or a plurality ofwavelengths (i.e., WDM channels), as shown in FIG. 26. In this example(FIG. 26) there are two channels: G or green channel that is connectedto 41-1 and R or red channel that is connected to 41-k. The time overeach channel is partition in accordance to the common time reference(CTR)—as was depicted in FIG. 2. In this case time frames are groupedinto time cycles (in FIG. 26, time frames G1-G4 are grouped into a timecycle, and time frames R1-R4 are grouped into a time cycle on anotherchannel), and time cycles are grouped into super-cycles.

As shown in FIG. 6, the switching from input to output maps input timeframes to output time frames in an arbitrary manner. In this example,FIG. 26, the following mapping is performed for the green channel: G1 tothe position of R3, G2 to the position of G4, G3 to the position of R1,G4 to the position of G2, and the following mapping is performed for thered channel: R1 to the position of G3, R2 to the position of R4, R3 tothe position of G1, R4 to the position of R2.

FIG. 27 depicts a general mapping format for time frame switching andforwarding over a plurality of WDM channels: (p-in, w-in, t-in, c-in) TO(p-out, w-out, t-switch, c-switch, t-out, c-out), wherein p-in—inputport #, w-in—input wavelength (color), t-in—time frame # in (within atime cycle), c-in—time cycle # in (within a super-cycle) andp-out—output port #, w-out—output wavelength (color), t-switch—timeframe # switch (within a time cycle), c-switch—time cycle # switch(within a super-cycle), t-out—time frame # out (within a time cycle),c-out—time cycle # out (within a super-cycle).

The table 2700 in FIG. 27 shows time frame switching for a given p-in(input port). The rows in table 2700 represent two WDM channels (red andgreen) with four time frames in every time cycles, which arecorresponding to the description in FIG. 26. The columns in table 2700represent 1 time cycles of one super-cycle. Each entry in table 2700represents: p-out or the output port, w-out or the output wavelength,t-switch or the time frame switching time from input to output, c-switchor the cycle time switching time from input to output, t-out or the timeframe out of the out put port, c-out or the time cycle out of the outputport.

FIG. 29 depicts the basic WDM time frame switching property: The sourceof any wavelength (W1, W2, and W3) in any time frame can come from anyinput port, 1<=i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q<=N, of a switch with N inputports, where i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q are input port indices. In theexample in FIG. 29 there are three optical channels (or three distinctwavelengths) W1, W2 and W3, with the following time frame mapping: W1from input i, W1 from input j, W1 from input k, W2 from input 1, W2 frominput m, W2 from input n, W3 from input o, W3 from input p, W3 frominput q. In summary, the out-going content (i.e., data packets) in everytime frame on any WDM channel can be the incoming content of any timeframe on any WDM channel. The delay between the out-going time frame andthe incoming time frame is a predefined number of 1, 2, 3 and so on timeframes. Typically, this input to output delay is not longer than 3-4time frames.

In the context of this invention each time frame can contain a pluralityof format types that are scheduled and transferred while maintainingindividual identity, wherein the possible format types are, but notlimited to: a fixed size ATM cell, a variable sized IP data packet, aframe relay data packet, a fiber channel data packet.

Method 4: Optical Time Frame Switching (FIGS. 30 and 31)

In method 4, as in the previous method, Method 3, the content of thewhole time frame is switched in the same way—namely, all the datapackets in the time frame are switched to the same output port.Consequently, there is no need to use time slots. However, in thismethod, Method 4, the switching is done optically by an all-optical timeframe switch, as shown in FIGS. 30 and 31. The all optical switching isstill being controlled by digital electronic circuitry.

The control function of the all-optical time frame switch operates bythe following principle (FIG. 30):

In every time frame within a time cycle and within a super-cycle, aninput wavelength is switched to a selected defined subset of theout-going optical channels performing the following mapping:

(p-in,w-in,t-in,c-in) TO (p-out,w-out,t-out,c-out), wherein p-in—inputport #, w-in—input wavelength (color), t-in—time frame # in (within atime cycle), and c-in—time cycle # in (within a super-cycle), are theinput variables, and p-out—output port #, w-out—output wavelength(color), t-out—time frame # out (within a time cycle), and c-out—timecycle # out (within a super-cycle), are the output variables.

The above mapping is defined by a switching matrix. The switching matrixis defined by a plurality of tables 3000 for w-in and p-in in FIG. 30.The rows in this table 3000 are for each of the 4 time frames in a timecycle and the columns are for each of the 4 time cycles in asuper-cycle. In other words, the table 3000 has an entry for each timeframe of a super-cycle. Each entry in the table 3000 defines p-out,w-out, t-out, and c-out.

A sequence of all optical switches operates as was shown in FIG. 28,which shows an example of time frame (TF) switching and forwardingthrough a sequence of the switches: Switch A, Switch B, and Switch C.According to this specific example the content of a TF that wasforwarded from Switch A at time frame 2 will reach Switch B at timeframe 5, then switched to the output port at time frame 6, thenforwarded at time frame 7 and will reach Switch C at time frame 9.

FIG. 31A shows an example of how an optical switch may operate. Theincoming optical WDM signal gets through an optical demultiplexer 3120,which separates the multiplexed incoming optical signal, 41-1 to 41-3,into three separate optical signals, 1 a, 1 b, and 1 c, which arecoupled with the all optical switching fabric 3100. Note that theoptical demultiplexer may consist of an optical-to-electronic conversiontogether with an electronic-to-optical conversion in order to restorethe optical signal into its original quality. The outputs of the opticalswitching fabric 3100, 1 e, 1 f, and 1 g, are coupled into an opticalmultiplexer 3130. Note again that since the optical switching fabric3100 may degrade the optical signals the optical multiplexer may consistof an optical-to-electronic conversion together with anelectronic-to-optical conversion in order to restore the optical signalinto its original quality. The output of the optical multiplexer 3130 iscoupled to the optical link 41-1 to 41-3.

The optical switching matrix for every time frame is extracted from theplurality of tables 3000 for w-in and p-in in FIG. 30. The opticaltransmission and switching have the following temporal pattern, asdefined in FIG. 31B, with two alternating phases: (1) t-sw—the period oftime, responsive to CTR 002, in which the optical switch is switchingthe optical signals: 1 a, 1 b, and 1 c to 1 e, 1 f, and 1 g, and (2)t-su—the period of time, responsive to CTR 002, in which the opticalswitching pattern is changed—during this period of time a new opticalswitching matrix is set-up. Typically, the time period of t-sw is muchlarger than t-su.

Method 5: Multiple Switching Fabrics as Shown in FIG. 32.

In this method 5, the switching is performed for every wavelengthseparately, as shown in FIG. 32A. The switching can be performed eitherelectronically or optically, as it was previously discussed.

When a switching fabric is associated with a single wavelength, then thesystem is equivalent to having multiple independent switches. In FIG.32A each input port 3210 receives three multiplexed optical channels,41-1 to 41-3, which after demultiplexing are coupled to three switchingfabrics in the following manner: the first channel, 37-11, from everyinput port is coupled to the first switching fabric 50-1, the secondchannel, 37-12, from every input port is coupled to the second switchingfabric 50-2, and the third channel, 37-13, from every input port iscoupled to the third switching fabric 50-3. The outputs of the threeswitching fabrics are coupled to the output ports in the followingmanner: the first output 51-1 to 51-3 from every switching fabric iscoupled to output port 1 3220, the second output 51-1 to 51-3 is coupledto output port 2 3220, and so forth.

Each of the switching fabrics has its own fabric controller: switchingfabric 50-1 has fabric controller 52-1, switching fabric 50-2 has fabriccontroller 52-2, and switching fabric 50-3 has fabric controller 52-3.

FIG. 32B shows a three phase operation of the method that is based onthe FAST Queues (as were shown in FIGS. 9 and 10) in which there arepre-computed switching schedules for the incoming data packets.

In phase 1, shown in FIG. 32B, a data packet is received by the inputport serial receiver and forwarded to the routing controller 35B (shownin FIG. 7) where an attachment is made to the data packet header. Thisattachment includes the Time of Arrival (ToA) 35T and may include otherinformation such as but not limited to port number and WDM channelnumber: one of 41-1 through 41-3. In phase 1, a routing step is alsoperformed by the routing controller 35B which directs the data packet toone or more of the corresponding output schedule controller(s), asdetermined by the multicast indication 35M in the data packet header, aswas defined in FIG. 6.

In phase 2, the SBCC 36D (in FIG. 9 and FIG. 10) de-queues and forwardsdata units responsive to one of the fabric controllers 52-1, 52-2 or52-3, that determines to which output port the data unit will beswitched by the corresponding switching fabric 52-1, 52-2 or 52-3.

In phase 3, the output port 3220 forwards the data packet received fromone of the switch fabric 52-1, 52-2 or 52-3, on one of the WDM channels41-1 through 41-3, as was shown in FIG. 32A.

Method 6 utilizes alignment of time frame switching as shown in FIGS.33-38.

The switch that is described in FIG. 33A operates according to thefollowing switching principle:

From (any TF of any Channel at any Input)

To (predefined TF of any Channel at any Output)

Note that the predefined TF is either an immediate TF—next TF—or anon-immediate TF—after two, three or more TFs.

The switch in FIG. 33A has 16 input ports 3400 and 16 output ports 3800,wherein each port is connected to 16 WDM optical channels 3420. Theinput ports and output ports are coupled by a switching fabric 50 andthe switching operation is controlled by a fabric controller 52. Thefabric controller determines the switching pattern through the switchingfabric from the plurality of input optical channels 3420 to theplurality of output optical channels 3420.

FIG. 33B presents an example of two-phase switch operation:

Phase 1—Receiving & Alignment—in this phase the data packets arereceived via the optical channels, and stored in the alignment subsystem3500 in FIG. 34 and aligned with the CTR 002, which is discussed below.

Phase 2—Switching & Transmitting—in this phase the content of a wholetime frame is switched and then transmitted to the optical channelresponsive to the CTR, which means that the transmission of the contentof a time frame starts at the beginning of a time frame as determined bythe CTR.

The input from the optical channel can come either from an output port3800 of another switch or from an SVP interface 4500 that performssynchronizer/shaper functions, which consist in mapping of asynchronousdata packets into time frames. This kind of mapping is typically neededat the network ingress, as shown in FIG. 34.

The alignment subsystem 3500, in FIG. 35, receives its data packet inputfrom the 1-to-16 Optical DMUX & Serial Receivers (SONET/SDH)&Serial-to-Parallel Conversion 3410 via the 3430 connection, as shown inFIG. 34. The 3430 connection can be either a serial link or a parallelbus. For each WDM optical channel (j) there is one alignment subsystem3500. The data packets that output from the alignment subsystem 3500 aretransferred to out-going optical channels via the switching fabric 50.

There is a plurality of selectable input ports (i) 3400 each receivingdata packets over a plurality of incoming optical channels (j) and aplurality of output ports (k) 3800 each sending data packets over aplurality of outgoing optical channels (l). Each of the incoming opticalchannels (j) has a unique time reference (UTR-j), as shown in FIG. 36,that is independent of the CTR 002, also shown in FIG. 36.

The (UTR-j) is divided into SCs (super-cycles), TCs (time cycles), andTFs (time frames) of the same durations as the SCs, TCs, and TFs of theCTR used on optical channel (j), as it was shown in FIG. 2. Each of theSCs, TCs, and TFs of the (UTR-j) starts and ends at a time differentthan the respective start and end in time of the SCs, TCs, and TFs ofthe CTR. A plurality of buffer queues 3550 are part of each alignmentsubsystem 3500, wherein each of the respective buffer queues isassociated, for each of the TFs, with a unique combination of one of theincoming optical channels and one of the outgoing optical channels.

Between successive SCs, TCs, and TFs of the UTR-j can be explicit orimplicit delimiters. The explicit delimiters can be realized by one ofthe control codewords from FIG. 5C. There can be a different delimitercontrol word to signal the beginning of a new TF (i.e., a time framedelimiter—TFD), TC (i.e., a time cycle delimiter—TCD) and SC (i.e., asuper-cycle delimiter—SCD). The explicit delimiter signaling can berealized by the SONET/SDH path overhead field that was design to carrycontrol, signaling and management information. An implicit delimiter canbe realized by measuring the UTR-j time with respect to the CTR.

A mapping controller within the fabric controller 52 system forlogically mapping, for each of the (UTR-j) TFs, selected incomingoptical channels (j) to selected buffer queues, and for logicallymapping, for each of the CTR TFs, selected ones of the plurality ofbuffer queues to selected outgoing channels (1).

Each alignment subsystem 3500 selects which of the buffers 3550 willreceive data packets from the optical channel (j) at every time frame asit is defined by the (UTR-j). The selection process by the alignmentsubsystem 3500 is responsive to the Select-in signal 3510 received fromthe fabric controller 52. The Select-in signal 3510 is fed into a 1-to-3DMUX (demultiplexer) 3520 that selects one of 3 queue buffers in 3550:TF Queue1, TF Queue2, TF Queue3. The buffer queues in the alignmentsubsystem for each time frame can be filled with data packets inarbitrary order to an arbitrary level, prior to output.

The alignment subsystem 3500 comprised of a plurality of TF queues,wherein each of the time frame queues comprises means to determine thatthe respective time frame queue is empty, wherein each of the time framequeues further comprises means to determine that the respective timeframe queue is not empty. The empty (and not empty) signal 3450 isprovided to the fabric controller 52.

The mapping controller further provides for coupling of selected ones ofthe time frame queues 3550 to respective ones of the outgoing channels(l), for transfer of the respective stored data packets during therespective associated CTR time frames. This operation is performedresponsive to the Select-out signal 3530, as shown in FIG. 35.

A timing diagram description of the alignment operation is provided inFIG. 36. The operation follows this principle of operations:

TF Alignment of UTR(j) to UTC—with three input queues—principle ofoperation: The same queue is not used simultaneously for:

1. Receiving data packets from the serial link—responsive to Select-insignal 3510 received from the fabric controller 52, and

2. Forwarding data packets to the switch—responsive to Select-out signal3530 received from the fabric controller 52.

In the timing diagram example of FIG. 36 it is shown than a TF queue (TFQueue1, TF Queue2, TF Queue3—3550) is not written into and read from atthe same time. In other words, the Select-in signal 3510 and theSelect-out signal 3530 will not select the same TF queue at the sametime.

The alignment subsystem 3500 can have more than three TF queues3550—this can be used for Non-immediate forwarding method: in thismethod a data packet is delayed in the input port until there is anavailable time frame to be switched to the selected one of the outgoingoptical channels (l). In this method the delay is increased, i.e., moretime frames may be needed to get from input to output. The non-immediateforwarding add flexibility to the scheduling process of SVPs.

In an alternative embodiment, the alignment subsystem 3500 comprisesonly two buffers and an optical delay line. One buffer receives datafrom the corresponding input link, while data to be transferred throughthe switching fabric are retrieved from the other buffer. The delay linebetween the input link and the alignment subsystem ensures that the UTRof the corresponding link is aligned with the CTR. In other words, thetime a packet takes to travel from the alignment subsystem of theupstream time driven switch 10 to the alignment subsystem of theconsidered switch (including the propagation delay through the switchingfabric, the fiber channel link connecting the two switches, and theoptical delay line) is an integer multiple of a TF. In order to achievethis the delay element adds a link delay equal to the difference betweena beginning of the CTR time frame and a beginning of the UTR-j timeframe.

The optical delay line can have programmable tap points possiblycomprised of optical switches. The optical delay line can be external tothe switch, internal, or integrated in the optical receiver.

FIG. 38 shows the output port 3800 for 16 optical channels 3420. Theoutput port performs the Parallel-to-Serial Conversion, the SONET/SDHTransmission, and the 16-to-1 Optical MUX into an optical fiber.

The output port shown in FIG. 38 has no buffers, and consequently, datapackets are forwarded from the switching fabric to the network withminimum delay.

FIG. 37 shows a switching fabric 50 with a fabric controller (FC) 52.The fabric controller operates in the following way:

S((i,j),(k,l),t)—is a switching matrix 3721 for every time frame in eachtime cycle and super-cycle, the switching matrix defines which input i,jshould be connected to output k,l—in time frame t, where whenS((i,j),(k,l),t)=1 there is a connection, when S((i,j),(k,l),t)=0 thereis no connection.

The switching matrices 3721 follow the following restrictions:

1. At every time frame an input optical channel can be connected to oneor more output optical channels (multicast—MCST operation of 1-to-manyis possible)

2. At every time frame an output optical channel can be connected to atmost one input optical channel

The information required for the switching matrices 3721 is defined in aplurality of examples, which were presented in FIG. 25, FIG. 27 and FIG.30.

The fabric controller 52 is responsive to UTC 002 and provides thefollowing control signals: (1) Select-in signal 3510 and the Select-outsignal 3530 to the alignment subsystem 3500, and (2) Read signals 3921to the Routing Module 4000.

The switching fabric 50 in FIGS. 1, 15, 16, 24, 33, 37 and 41, as wellas the switching expander 4300 in FIGS. 42-43, can be realized in manyways. A well known but complex method is a crossbar, shown in FIG. 16.The crossbar has a switching element between every input and everyoutput. Consequently, the total number of switching elements required torealize the crossbar is the number of inputs (N) times the number ofoutputs (M). In the example of FIG. 16 there are N=5 inputs and M=5outputs, and therefore, the total number of switching elements is 25. Ifthere are N=1,000 inputs and M=1,000 outputs, the total number ofswitching elements is 1,000,000, which is a very large number.

However, there many other ways to realize the switching fabric 50 andswitching expander 4300 with fewer switching elements, such as, ageneralized multi-stage cube network, a Clos network, a Benes network,an Omega network, a Delta network, a multi-stage shuffle exchangenetwork, a perfect shuffle, a Banyan network, a combination ofdemultiplexers and multiplexers.

FIGS. 49-50 are examples of multi-stage shuffle exchange networks orgeneralized-cube networks that can be used to realized the switchingfabric 50 and switching expander 4300 in the context of this invention.The shuffle exchange network requires only a*N*lgaN switching elements,where N is the number on inputs and outputs, and a is the number ofinputs and outputs of each switching block 4900. In FIGS. 49A-49C theswitching block size is 2 (i.e., a=2), such that each switching blockcan be configured either as Straight Connection (FIG. 49A) or as a CrossConnection (FIG. 49B). The number on inputs and outputs of the switchingfabric 50 in FIG. 49C is 8 (i.e., N=M=8); consequently, the number ofswitching blocks 4900 is 12 and the number of switching elements is 48.Note that the number of switching elements in each switching block 4900is a*a.

FIG. 50B shows a larger shuffle network with N=M=256 inputs and outputs.Each switching block has 4 inputs and 4 output, and therefore, it has 16switching elements. The total number of switching elements in theexample in FIG. 50B is 4,096, as shown in FIG. 50A. Note that a crossbarwith N=M=256 requires 65,536 switching elements.

Method 7 utilizes combined time frame switching with asynchronous packetswitching as shown in FIGS. 39-44.

In the following Method 7, part of the content of a time frame is routedaccording to time and part according to information contained in thedata packet header. Data packets routed according to time have reservedtransmission capacity and are forwarded according to a predefinedschedule. Packets that are routed according to header information do nothave reserved capacity and a predefined schedule (non-scheduled datapackets or NSDPs). NSDP are forwarded during time frames presenting somespared capacity.

FIG. 39 is the functional architecture of an input port 3900. The DWDMoptical channels are demultiplexed and each stream of bits converted inan equivalent parallel stream 3430 by an optical demultiplexer module3410.

A Filter module 3910 separates data packets that are to be routedaccording to header information from those that are to be routedaccording to time information, i.e., based on the time frame in whichthey have been received. The Filter module 3910 sorts out packets basedon information contained in their header. FIG. 6A shows a sample datapacket header; the Filter 3910 sorts data packets based on the contentof the priority field 35P. Other examples of information that can beused for filtering are the Differentiated Services (DS) Field in theheader of an IP packet or the MPLS label of an Multi-Protocol LabelSwitching frame. The Filter module 3910 can operate also based on asingle bit contained in the header that differentiates NSDPs fromscheduled data packets.

In an alternative embodiment of this invention, a control codeword (seeFIG. 5) is inserted into the time frame for separating the non-scheduledtype of service data packets from the scheduled type of service datapackets. The Filter module 3910 sorts separates scheduled data packetsfrom NSDP by using the aforementioned control codeword. For example, theFilter module 3910 could take out the data packets that are after thecontrol codeword (or between a pair of control codewords) asnon-scheduled type of service.

The Filter module 3910 features 2 output lines. Scheduled packets aremoved through one output line 3914 to the alignment subsystem 3500 ofthe channel on which they have been received. NSDPs are deliveredthrough another output line 3911 to a Routing Module 4000.

The block diagram of the alignment subsystems 3500 is shown in FIG. 35;the purpose, the working principles, and the control signals of thealignment subsystems 3500 have been explained previously.

The Routing Module 4000 whose block diagram is depicted in FIG. 40 sortsNSDPs in 16 queues 4030, one for each output port. Packets are sortedaccording to the output port 3800 form which they have to be forwardedin order to reach their final destination. The output port 3800 to whicha packet is directed is determined by the Routing Controller 4010 basedon the pipe identifier (PID) 35C shown in FIG. 6A. Other examples ofinformation on which the choice of the output port can be based include,but are not limited to, the IP destination address, the MPLS label, theMAC address.

The Routing Controller 4010 devises the queue 4030 the packet should bestored in from information contained in a routing table 4020. Forexample, the Routing Controller 4010 can use the PID 35C as an index tothe routing table 4020. The row corresponding to the PID value containsthe number of the output port the packet should be forwarded from, i.e.,the queue 4030 the packet should be stored in.

Part of the NSDPs can be directed outside the sub-network in which thetechnology disclosed in this invention is deployed; the RoutingController 4010 transmits them over the output port 3912. Analogously,NSDPs can enter the sub-network through input 3913.

FIG. 41 shows the connections 3440/4050 between the input port 3900 andthe switching fabric 50. The switching fabric 50 can connect any one ofthe alignment subsystem outputs 3440 and of the routing module outputs4050 to any of the input lines 3810 of any of the output ports 3800.Thus, the switching fabric 50 has 512 inputs 3440/4050 and 256 outputs3810.

A fabric controller 52 establishes the input/output connections throughthe switching fabric 50. At each time frame the fabric controller 52connects each line 3440 from the alignment subsystems 3500 to one of theoutput lines 3810 according to a predefined pattern which repeats itselfperiodically. The period can be one time cycle, one super-cycle, or anyother duration. Thus, in each time frame the content of the alignmentsystem's queue 3550 (either TF Queue1, or TF Queue2, or TF Queue3)selected by the fabric controller 52 through the select-out controlsignal 3530 is switched to a given output channel 3810.

In each time frame, the fabric controller 52 also determines through theselect-in control signal 3510 the queue 3550 in which all the scheduleddata packets received on an optical channel 3430 should be stored. Thequeue 3550 in which incoming packets are stored is selected according toa predefined pattern that repeats itself periodically. The period can beone time cycle, one super-cycle, or any other duration. In a subsequenttime frame that one queue 3550 is going to be selected through theselect-out 3530 control signal for switching to an output channel 3810.Thus, the time frame in which scheduled packets are received determinesthe path of such packets through the network.

The alignment subsystem 3500 uses the empty control signal 3450 tonotify the fabric controller 52 when the queue 3550 selected through theselect-out 3530 signal is empty. When a queue 3550 is empty, the outputchannel 3810 to which the queue is supposed to be connected would beidle during the corresponding (preset) time frame. Thus, the fabriccontroller 52 programs the switching fabric 50 to connect the idleoutput channel 3810 to the proper output 4050 of the Routing Module4000. Such proper output 4050 is the one corresponding to the queue 4030to the output port 3800 to which the idle channel 3810 belongs.

The NSDP queue 4030 that is connected to the idle channel 3810 can be ineither the same input port 3900 as the empty scheduled data packet queue3550, or another input port 3900. The fabric controller 52 knows whichNSDP queues 4030 are empty thanks to the full/empty control signals4040. The fabric controller 52 selects an NSDP queue from which NSDPsare to be retrieved through the read 3921 control signal.

In one implementation of the switch, the fabric controller 52 iscentralized; however different implementations are possible, consistentwith the presnt invention, that distribute the fabric controller 52functionality.

The switching fabric 50 can be implemented, not excluding other ways, asa crossbar or as a multi-stage network of 2-by-2 or 4-by-4 switchingelements, which has lower complexity than a crossbar.

All the control signals generated or received by the fabric controller52 (to control the switching fabric 50, to select the alignment system'squeue 3550 for input 3510 and for output 3530, to know whether thequeues are empty 3450/4040, etc.) need to be varied with a time scalecomparable with the time frame duration. Moreover, all the controlsignals are either predetermined according to a repetitive pattern, orcan be devised in advance from the state of the system during thepreceding time frame. Thus, the control signals can be given in the timeframe prior the one in which the components are supposed to react tothem. This is beneficial when the switch is operated at very high speedand the delay introduced by the control logic and by signal propagationcan be limiting.

FIGS. 42, 43 and 44 show an alternative implementation of a switch thatcan route scheduled data packets according to time and NSDPs accordingto information contained in their header.

As shown in FIG. 42, the input port 4200 comprises an opticaldemultiplexer 3410 that separates the 16 WDM optical channels 3420 over16 separate lines 3430 connected to a switching expander module 4300.The purpose of the switching expander module 4300 is to enable theconnection of each input channel 3420 to any optical channel 3820 on anyoutput port 4400.

A filter 3910 inserted on the outputs 3430 of the demultiplexer 3410separates NSDPs from the scheduled data packets that are the only onesentering the switching expander module 4300. The filter 3910 (not shownin FIG. 42) directs NSDPs to a Routing Module 4000 that routes themaccording to information contained in the data packet header, aspreviously described.

Both scheduled data packets and NSDPs enter the alignment subsystems4260. Scheduled data packets enter the alignment subsystems 4260 throughlines 4231 from the switching expander module 4300; NSDPs enter thealignment subsystems 4260 through lines 4232 from the Routing Module4000.

The alignment subsystem 4260 comprises a multiplicity of queues that aremanaged as described for the alignment subsystem 3500 shown in FIG. 35.However, the alignment subsystem 4260 handles also NSDPs (not onlyscheduled data packets). Upon exhaustion of the queue from which datapackets are being retrieved for transmission over the line 4330 towardsthe corresponding output channel 3820, the alignment subsystem 4260 cantransmit on line 4330 the NSDPs incoming on line 4232. The alignmentsubsystem 4260 could store NSDPs incoming from line 4232 in the samequeues as scheduled data packets, or the alignment subsystem 4260 couldcomprise a separate queue for storing NSDPs, or the Routing Module 4000could comprise such a queue.

The switch comprises a distributed Expander Controller that consists ofan input part 4210 in each input port 4200 and an output part 4410 ineach output port 4400. For each time frame, the distributed ExpanderController determines the output channel 3820 on which packets receivedfrom each input channel 3420 are being forwarded. This is achieved by(1) the input part 4210 of the Expander Controller (1a) configuring theinput/output connections of the switching expander 4300 and (1b)enabling the output 4330 of the proper alignment subsystem 4260, and (2)the output part 4410 controlling the selectors 4420 of each channel onevery output port 4400.

At each time frame each input 3430 of the switching expander 4300 isconnected with one or more (for multicast support) outputs 4231. At eachtime frame a subset of the alignment subsystems 4260 is enabled totransmit packets on the lines 4330 towards their correspondent outputchannel 3820.

At each time frame, the output part 4410 of the Expander Controllerdetermines from which input port 4200 packets should be retrieved forforwarding on each output channel 3820. This is achieved by the outputpart 4410 of the Expander Controller selecting one of the inputs 4330 ofthe 16 selectors 4420 contained in the output port 4400, as shown inFIG. 44. The output 3810 of the selectors 4420 are multiplexed by anOptical Multiplexer 3800 and transmitted on the outgoing fiber asseparate WDM channels 3820.

The control signals generated by the input parts 4210 and the outputparts 4410 of the distributed Expander Controller change with a periodcomparable to the duration of the time frame. The sequence of controlsignals is predetermined when SVPs are set up and repeats with a periodof one time cycle, or one super-cycle, or any other duration. As aconsequence, no communication is required among the different parts ofthe distributed expander controller in order to devise the controlsignals they generate.

FIG. 43 shows one realization of the switching expander 4300 as a 16 by256 crossbar. Other topologies, including but not limited to, multistagenetworks of 2-by-2 or 4-by-4 switching elements can be deployed in therealization of the switching expander 4300.

Method 8 utilizes an SVP interface to time frame switching fromasynchronous packet switching as shown in FIGS. 45-48.

An overall view of a WDM network that combines asynchronous IP/MPLS(Internet protocol/multi-protocol label switching) data packet switchingwith time frame switching and forwarding is shown in FIG. 48. Suchnetwork has two basic layers, the inner one is the optical switching andforwarding and the outer one is the IP/MPLS access interfaces. TheIP/MPLS interfaces transform the asynchronous data packet flows intoSynchronous Virtual Pipe (SVP) flows.

An SVP interface module is required to forward over an SVP packets thathave traveled over an asynchronous packet network. As shown in FIG. 47,the SVP interface module is required only for the input links connectingmulti-protocol SVP time driven switches to asynchronous packet switches;the SVP interface module is not required on links connectingmulti-protocol SVP time driven switches, i.e., switches that use thetechnology disclosed in this invention. Moreover, as shown in FIG. 46B,the SVP interface module 4600 is required only in the inbound directionof the interface of the multi-protocol SVP time driven switch 10, not inthe outbound direction.

Two alternatives for realizing the SVP interface module will bepresented in the following. FIG. 45 shows the block diagram of the SVPinterface 4500 according to the first alternative. A Packet SchedulingController 4510 processes asynchronous data packets arriving from aninput link 4501. Based on information contained in the packetheader—such as the PID field 35C (see FIG. 6), or an MPLS label, or thedestination address in an IP packet, or the VCI/VPI in an ATM cell, orother header fields—the Packet Scheduling Controller 4510 identifies theSVP to which the asynchronous data packet belongs. The relevant headerinformation is used, for example as a lookup key, to retrieve SVPschedule information from a pre-computed table 4511. Typical scheduleinformation include, but are not limited to, the time frames in whichpackets belonging to each SVP should be forwarded on the link 41 towardsa multi-protocol SVP time-driven switch 10.

Once processed by the Packet Scheduling Controller 4510, data packetsare stored in a per time frame queuing system 4540. The per time framequeuing system 4540 comprises a multiplicity of queues 4550. Each queueis associated with one time frame. The Forwarding Controller 4520retrieves the packets contained in a specific queue 4550 during the timeframe associated to that queue. The Packet Scheduling Controller 4510stores an incoming packet in the queue 4550 currently associated to oneof the time frames reserved for the SVP to which the packet belongs.

For example, an SVP interface implementation could feature a per timeframe queuing system 4540 that contains one queue for each time frame inthe time cycle. For each data packet, the Packet Scheduling Controller4510 devises the PID 35C from the data packet header and uses it as akey to the SVP Schedules table 4511 to retrieve the pointers to thequeues 4550 in which the data packet should be stored. The PacketScheduling Controller 4510 moves the packets to one of the selectedqueues 4550.

Multiple ways exist according to which the Packet Scheduling Controller4510 can choose the specific queue 4550 in which to store the packet.One possible implementation consists in choosing the first queue 4550that will be served, i.e., the one associated to the next time frame tocome.

Each queue 4550 can be organized in 3 sub-queues: CBR (Constant BitRate), VBR (Variable Bit Rate) and “Best Effort” traffic. The PacketScheduling Controller 4510 determines the type of traffic to whichincoming data packets belong based on information contained in theheader, such as the PID 35C, the Differentiated Services (DS) Field inIP packets, the VPI/VCI fields in ATM cells, or any other (combinationof) header fields.

At each time frame, the Forwarding Controller 4520 retrieves andforwards on the line 41 towards a multi-protocol SVP time-driven switchdata packets stored in the queues 4550 associated to the given timeframe. In the following a preferred policy for data packets retrieval ispresented; other policies can be applied.

Data packets contained in the CBR sub-queue are retrieved first,starting at the beginning of the time frame associated to the queue4550. If the CBR sub-queue becomes empty before the end of the timeframe associated to the selected queue 4550, data packets in the VBRsub-queue are retrieved and forwarded. If the VBR sub-queue becomesempty before the end of the time frame associated to the queue 4550,data packets in the “Best effort” sub-queue are retrieved and forwarded.

The sub-queues can be ordered in various ways and even logicallyorganized in multiple sub-queues. When retrieving packets from each thequeues 4550 the Forwarding Controller 4520 can apply a variety of packetscheduling algorithms, such as, FIFO, simple priority, round robin,weighted fair queuing. Also the order in which packets are retrievedfrom the various sub-queues (i.e., the relative priority of thesub-queues) depends on the adopted queue management policy.

All the data packets that happen to be remaining in a queue 4550 by theend of the associated time frame are transferred to the ReschedulingController 4530. The Rescheduling Controller 4530 sorts packets in thedifferent queues 4550 of the per time frame queuing system 4540similarly to the Packet Scheduling Controller 4510. The operation of theRescheduling Controller 4530 is based (i) on information retrieved fromthe SVP Schedules table 4511 (for example, using data packet headerfields as access key), and/or (ii) on the queue in which the packets hadbeen previously stored.

The SVP interface can have multiple lower capacity input lines 4501 thatare aggregated on the same higher speed output line 41. In other words,data packets are received from multiple input lines 4501, sorted in thequeues 4550 of the same per time frame queuing system 4540 from whichthe Forwarding Controller 4520 retrieves data packets for transmissionon the output line 41.

The Forwarding Controller 4520 can be comprised of a plurality ofForwarding Controllers, each one associated with at least one of thechannels 41. There can be a plurality of sets of queues 4540, each setcomprising at least one queue 4550, wherein each set 4540 is associatedwith one of the Forwarding Controllers 4520.

FIG. 46 shows the block diagram of the SVP interface 4600 implementedaccording to the second alternative. Incoming packets are stored in aqueuing system that comprises multiple queues 4610. Each queue 4610 isassociated to a specific SVP 25; data packets are stored in the queue4610 corresponding to the SVP 25 they belong to. The SVP to which datapackets belong (i.e., the identity of the queue in which they should bestored) is devised through information contained in their header, suchas the PID field 35C, the destination address or the DS field in an IPpacket or a combination of the two, the MPLS label, the VPI/VCI of anATM cell, or any other (combination of) header fields.

An SVP Forwarding Controller 4630 retrieves data packets from the queueassociated to the SVP 25 for which the current time frame had beenreserved. The current time frame is identified in accordance to theCommon Time Reference 002. Retrieved packets are transmitted on anoutput line 41 towards a Multi-protocol SVP Time-driven Switch 10.

At the beginning of a new time frame the SVP Forwarding Controller 4630possibly changes the queue 4610 from which to retrieve packets. The newqueue 4610 is identified by consulting the SVP Schedules database 4640which contains, among other information, the SVP to which each timeframe had been reserved.

The SVP Forwarding Controller 4630 can retrieve packets from more thanone queue 4610 and forward them on more than one output line 41. In thiscase the SVP Schedules database 4640 provides for each time frame, theSVP 25 for which it has been reserved on each of the output lines 41.Thus, each time frame can be reserved for zero (not reserved) to as manySVPs 25 as the number of output lines 41.

The SVP Interface 4600 can comprise a plurality of SVP ForwardingController Modules 4620 each associated with at least one of a pluralityof asynchronous data streams.

From the foregoing, it will be observed that numerous variations andmodifications may be effected without departing from the spirit andscope of the invention. It is to be understood that no limitation withrespect to the specific apparatus illustrated herein is intended orshould be inferred. It is, of course, intended to cover by the appendedclaims all such modifications as fall within the scope of the claims.From the foregoing, it will be observed that numerous variations andmodifications may be effected without departing from the spirit andscope of the invention. It is to be understood that no limitation withrespect to the specific apparatus illustrated herein is intended orshould be inferred. It is, of course, intended to cover by the appendedclaims all such modifications as fall within the scope of the claims.

1. An interface system having an input and an output, the interfacesystem further comprising: a Common Time Reference (CTR); communicationsswitch and a communications device connected by at least onecommunications link, comprising at least one channel, for transmitting aplurality of data packets between the communications switch and thecommunications device; wherein each channel transmits electromagneticsignal of at least one of: optical, radio frequency and wireless;wherein each of the communications switch and communications device isfurther comprised of at least one input port and at least one outputport, each of the input port is connected to and receiving data packetsfrom the communications link from at least one of the channels, and eachof the output port is connected and transmitting data packets to thecommunications link over at least one of the channels; wherein selectedcommunications links are connected between one of the output ports onthe communications switch and one of the input ports on at least one ofthe communications devices; wherein selected communications links areconnected between one of the output ports on the communications deviceand the input port on at least one of the communications switches;wherein each of the communications switch and communication device has acontroller, coupled to the CTR, the respective input ports, and therespective output ports; wherein each of the communications switch has aswitch fabric coupled to the respective controller, the respective inputports, and the respective output ports; wherein each of the controllersis responsive to the CTR for scheduling and transmitting at least onedata packet on a respective one of the channels to a respective inputport, during a first predefined time interval; and wherein each of thecontrollers is responsive to the CTR for scheduling and transmitting atleast one data packet on a respective one of the channels from arespective output port, during a second predefined time interval.
 2. Thesystem as in claim 1, wherein the communications device is at least oneof the following: a mobile communications device, a handheldcommunication device, a cellular communications device, a wirelessdevice, a Wi-Fi device, a WiMAX device, and a Femtocell device.
 3. Thesystem as in claim 1, wherein the communications switch is at least oneof: an optical switch, an IP (Internet Protocol) router, an IP switch,an IP wireless router, a wireless switch, a wireless base-station, awireless access point, a 3G base-station, and a 4G base-station.
 4. Aninput interface system for mapping data packets, each comprising aheader portion and a payload portion, from at least one source to atleast one destination, said system comprising: a Common Time Reference(CTR), divided into a plurality of contiguous cycles each comprised ofat least one contiguous time frame (TF); wherein each TF duration is atleast one of fixed duration and variable duration; at least onesynchronous virtual pipe (SVP) having a subset of predefined timeframes; wherein each SVP consists of at least one electromagneticchannel; wherein each electromagnetic channel is at least one of: anoptical channel, radio frequency channel and wireless channel; at leastone queue wherein each queue is associated with at least one of theelectromagnetic channels; means for analyzing the header portions of thedata packets; means for storing the analyzed data packets in respectivequeues responsive to the means for analyzing; wherein eachelectromagnetic channel is coupled to at least one destination; and anSVP Forwarding Controller responsive to the means for analyzing and themeans for storing, comprising a second memory for storing SVP schedules,and for forwarding, to at least one selected electromagnetic channel,respective ones of the data packets from respective ones of the queuesresponsive to the respective one of the SVP schedules and the CTR. 5.The system as in claim 4, wherein the data packets are forwarded out ofthe respective one of the queues during predefined time frames to atleast one destination.
 6. The system as in claim 4, wherein the SVPForwarding Controller is comprised of a plurality of SVP forwardingcontrollers.
 7. The system as in claim 6, wherein each of the pluralityof SVP Forwarding Controllers is associated with at least one of theelectromagnetic channels.
 8. The system as in claim 6, wherein there isa plurality of sets of queues, each set comprising at least one queue,wherein each set is associated with one respective one of the SVPForwarding Controllers.
 9. The system as in claim 4, wherein there are aplurality of separate and independent streams of data packets.
 10. Thesystem as in claim 9, wherein there is a plurality of the means foranalyzing; wherein each of the means for analyzing provides analysis ofat least one of the plurality of streams of data packets.
 11. The systemas in claim 4, wherein each of the queues is subdivided into a ConstantBit Rate (CBR), a Variable Bit Rate (VBR), and a best efforts (BE)queue; wherein the means for analyzing is further comprised of acontroller and a scheduling table, and provides for identifyingrespective ones of the data packets as CBR, VBR, and BE; wherein themeans for storing provides for storage of the respective data packets inthe respective CBR, VBR, and BE queues for an associated respective oneof the queues associated with an associated respective one of the timeframes, responsive to the means for analyzing.
 12. The system as inclaim 11, wherein the output from the respective ones of the queues isprioritized to provide first for output from the respective one of thequeue's CBR queue, then from the respective one of the queue's VBRqueue, and then from the respective one of the queue's BE queue.
 13. Thesystem as in claim 4, the system further comprising: a reschedulingcontroller for detecting and for rescheduling the transmission ofcertain ones of the data packets responsive to electromagnetic channelfailures.
 14. The system as in claim 13, wherein the rescheduling isprovided responsive to the rescheduling controller and the means foranalyzing.
 15. The system as in claim 4, wherein the data packets areforwarded out of the respective queues during predefined one of the timeframes in a cyclically recurring order.
 16. The system as in claim 4,wherein the CTR is Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) standard; andwherein a predefine number of time frames constitutes a cycle; whereineach cycle is at one of: a single UTC second, a predefined integernumber of UTC seconds, and a fraction of one UTC second.
 17. An inputinterface method comprising: mapping an stream of data packets, eachcomprising a header portion and a payload portion, from at least onesource to at least one destination; providing a Common Time Reference(CTR), divided into a plurality of periodic cycles each comprised of atleast one time frame (TF); wherein each TF duration is at least one offixed duration and variable duration; providing at least one synchronousvirtual pipe (SVP) having a subset of predefined ones of the time framesuniquely associated therewith; wherein each SVP consists of at least oneelectromagnetic channel; wherein each electromagnetic channel is atleast one of: an optical channel, radio frequency channel and wirelesschannel; providing a plurality of queues, wherein each queue isassociated with a respective one of the SVPs, and wherein each of thetime frames is associated with one of the queues; analyzing the headerportions of the data packets; storing the analyzed data packets inrespective queues responsive to the means for analyzing; and providing alink coupled to at least one destination via at least one selected SVPfor transmitting data packets responsive to the analyzing and storing.18. The method as in claim 17, further comprising: dividing each of thequeues into a Constant Bit Rate (CBR) queue, a Variable Bit Rate (VBR)queue, and a best effort (BE) queue; identifying respective ones of thedata packets as CBR data packet, VBR data packet, and BE data packet;storing the respective data packets in the respective CBR, VBR, and BEqueues for a respective queue associated with a respective time frame,responsive to the identifying and analyzing; and forwarding a respectiveone of the data packets from the respective one of queues that isassociated with the respective time frame responsive to the CTR.
 19. Themethod as in claim 18, further comprising: prioritizing the output fromthe respective one of the queues to provide first for output from therespective one of the queue's CBR queue, then from the respective one ofthe queue's VBR queue, and then from the respective one of the queue'sBE queue.
 20. The method as in claim 17, further comprising: detecting,analyzing and rescheduling the certain ones of the data packetsresponsive to electromagnetic channel failures.